By A Correspondent-Mines and Mining Development, Winston Chitando, has been implicated in the eviction of Dinde villagers in Hwange.

The government wants the villagers to pave way for a Chinese coal mining project.

Chitando is one of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s delegation which was sent to forced the villagers to leave their ancestral land for the Chinese.

Southern Eye reports that Matabeleland North Provincial Affairs minister Richard Moyo and Mines and Mining Development minister Winston Chitando visited Dinde today and engage the villagers over the coal mining project.

Moyo confirmed the visit yesterday.

He appealed to the Dinde community to allow the Chinese firm to start operations, adding that the villagers stood to benefit from the project through job creation, among others.

“I will be accompanying the Mines minister to the area to engage the community and hear their concerns. There must have been some poor communication about this project, hence villagers have been resisting,” Moyo said.

“However, this investment will benefit the community through jobs and so forth, but if the villagers do not want it, that will be okay. However, if this investment goes to other parts of the country, there must be no crying foul on issues of lack of jobs and development.”

The proposed Dinde project comes a few months after the government was forced to reverse a decision to let two other Chinese firms explore coal inside the Hwange National Park.

Environmentalists took the government to court in September 2020 to prevent ecological degradation after two Chinese firms were given exploration rights in the country’s biggest national park.

Reports indicate that desperate Dinde villagers intend to petition Parliament to stop the coal mining project.

Dinde is home to thousands of Nambyas and Tongas with a preponderance of the Tonga tribe which first settled in the then Hwange district up to Victoria Falls upstream of the Zambezi River centuries ago.

-NewsDay