How lithium could transform Zimbabwe’s rural economy

EnviroPress Reporter

Lithium deposits in Zimbabwe could be strategic for a green economy, potentially making the rural population to grow faster since most of the lithium mines are in the rural areas.

Lithium is a critical mineral used in solar panel technology and in batteries for electric vehicles. Major economies of the world seek to control lithium supply chains in order to put themselves at vantage points in the transition to a greener global economy, and in the quest to reduce their carbon foot print.

Zimbabwe has Africa’s biggest known lithium deposits, and the biggest investor is China whose companies have acquired several mines and have initiated new ones.

The companies include Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, Sinomine Resource Group, and Chengxin Lithium Group.

There is debate, however, on how much the country is benefitting from these investments beyond the usual employment discourse which so far has been overshadowed by cases of unfair labour practices.

“After creaming off our lithium for a song, China declares it has 15% of the world’s known lithium deposits. You first harvest minerals from countries whose leaders have a high appetite for corruption & zero national interests… then turn to your own last,” the Director of the Centre for Narural Resource Governance (CNRG) director Farai Maguwu posted on X on January 10, 2024.

He was referring to a report that China’s lithium reserves had risen from 6% to 16.5% of the global total, making it the world’s second-largest holder of lithium reserves as reported by Chinese state media on January 08, 2025.

The newly-discovered mines include a 2 800-km-long spodumene mine in the Xikunsong-Pan-Ganzi region in Tibet, and some lithium salt lakes in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

“[The] Natural resources [that] Zimbabwe is donating to China, South Africa, Russia et al and local organized criminal gangs for next to nothing are enough to build new state of the art hospitals and give every Zimbabwean an equal opportunity to live,” he had written earlier on in protest against the failure by the government and investors to develop and eradicate poverty in communities from whose land vast minerals are extracted yearly.

Chief Marozva of Bikita district, who is the traditional custodian of the land on which Bikita Minerals sits, said the rate of lithium-driven community development in places where the resource was being mined was unsatisfactory.

As a solution, he said, the government should come up with laws that make the implementation of clearly-specified community development initiatives mandatory for lithium mining companies.

“In our case, the company has tried to help the community but there are wide gaps that remain and we feel that not enough is being done. We just need to have new laws that favor local development. Currently, developing the host community is a moral choice, rather than a statutory obligation,” said Chief Marozva, whose real name is Ishmael Mudhe.

Bikita Minerals is owned by the Shenzhen-listed Sino Mine Resource Group which bought it from its majority German shareholder for US$180 million in January 2022. To increase stability on its power supply, company has built a new 132KV Tugwi BSP-Masvingo-Bikita Mineral 120km-long transmission line, is expanding the 330/132KV substation at Tugwi (120km away), and is building a new 133/32KV substation close to its own premises.

The Chamber of Mines reported that the mining industry generated US$5.6 billion in 2022 compared to US$5.1 billion in 2021, with the lithium sector alone being expected to grow to a US$12 billion industry by the end of 2024.

Smuggling of minerals

With the porous borders and deep corruption, Zimbabwe loses mineral value in leakages and smuggling through the borders.

On 05 May, 2023, Masvingo police busted a syndicate that had been smuggling undeclared lithium from Bikita Minerals. Some 17 people were arrested on the spot and trucks carrying lithium ore were confiscated. Further investigations led to two sites in the Masvingo industrial area where a total of 3 700 tonnes of illicit lithium ore was later quantified.

In their brief to the media, police said the lithium ore would be smuggled to Mozambican and South African coasts enroute to China at a time when regulations already prohibited the export of lithium ore. The case, however, died a natural death with the arrested people being released, further fueling suspicions of the involvement of highly-influential or politically-connected players.

In 2023, government warned that it would soon ban the export of lithium concentrates to force companies to process carbonates, which are a notch up the lithium value-addition process but this has not yet materialised as yet.

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