For many years, we have had this impression that building a school, putting up a road, power line, internet access and a clinic is community investment. This is self-interest investment because you find that the mining houses themselves benefit from that infrastructure, so they are doing it partially for themselves, and at the same time for the community. I believe, in support of His Excellency’s vision, we need to get to a point where we say, this is not recognised as community reinvestment but community reinvestment must be something that is sustainable. If you are extracting huge resources out of this country and making billions or hundreds and millions of dollars or tens of millions of dollars, we need to see something within the community that will be sustainable…
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Mandiwanzira, you are left with five minutes.
HON. MANDIWANZIRA: Thank you Madam Speaker. So I believe that we must then start to encourage the investment. As we are attracting this $12 billion, we must begin to see investment that is going towards building of dams and irrigation schemes. I was most impressed Madam Speaker, to see an initiative launched by His Excellency the President with Zimplats –a lot of cattle, that is sustainable community reinvestment. You can tell that the mine is not putting anything of self interest in the community; it is really empowering the community. I am saying that the opportunity is now.
Zimbabwe is an attractive destination because of the huge mineral resources that we have. When we have these huge mineral resources, this is the best time that we have to call for our pound of flesh nekuti munhu wese arikuda kuuya kuno uku Madam Speaker because arikuziva kuti tine coal ne lithium yakawanda. This is the time we must say, tirikuda zvakati, our price must go up. We must say, okay you can access our lithium but we are expecting you to build a dam in that area, you can access our lithium but we expect you to build a hospital and not just a small clinic because the hospital will always be there to assist the community.
Madam Speaker, in support of His Excellency’s vision, I believe the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development can also look at how we issue claims. How we allow people to access claims – I think it must be the right of locals to access claims easily but …
[Time Limit.]
HON. T. MOYO: On a point of Order Madam Speaker! My point of order arises from that fact that we want the Hon. Member to be given an additional five minutes on top of the five minutes that you had ruled.
Motion put and agreed to.
HON. MANDIWANZIRA: Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I would also like to thank the Hon. Member for his gesture and the generosity that I be awarded more time. I really appreciate.
Madam Speaker, the point I was making is that when we are on top of the world in terms of resources and everybody is interested in what we have, it cannot be business as usual. We really need to put our price tag up so that we are benefiting in this time where we are on demand. If you are on demand or when a product is on demand, the price must go up. So in this particular case, I believe our price to the investors who are coming must be up so that our communities really get to benefit. Our price must be up so that our locals have the advantage – I was making the point around how mining claims are accessed.
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