Government investigates illegal sand mining at Zamenkomste

Officials from the national Department of Mineral Resources visited the Kutama Traditional Council last week, following a complaint by the council about illegal sand miners at Zamenkomste village.

The Kutama Traditional Council had previously warned strangers and locals to stop the practice of illegally mining sand in the open grazing fields and crop fields. Some of these illegal “miners”, however, refused to adhere to the request.

The council decided to take the matter up with the Department of Mineral Resources after the police said that they could not arrest and charge illegal miners, since they had no Act to incriminate them.

The Department of Mineral Resources’ two officials, Mr Ntsundeni Ravhugoni and Ms Nkhensani Thwala, listened to the council’s complaint and took notes. The council stated that they held a legitimate permit to mine sand in the area and only at specific spaces.

“Since we are the permit holders, we had entered into an agreement with some truckers where we allowed them to mine sand only in the river, but when the sand was finished in the river, they had started mining sand in the open area,” said the Kutama Royal Council’s chairperson, Vho-Leslie Ramabulana. “On the other hand, there are other opportunists who invade the fields from nowhere and start mining sand.”

Ramabulana emphasised that the council had ordered the illegal sand miners to stop with the illegal mining of sand on many occasions. “Our cattle would fall into the holes and die during the rainy season,” he said.

Ravhugoni said that his office would go and make proper investigations into the matter and find out if the miners had legal documents that allowed them to mine sand, to work in the place which had water (river), and if they complied with the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Act.

“Once the council provides us with a list of all illegal miners who are said to be contravening the law, we will see which necessary steps to take against all those people if they are found to be on the wrong side of the law,” Ravhugoni said.

Date:26 August 2016

By: Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.

Read: 826