He might have been happy to do so – but did not have the option. The giant steel firm shut down in 2008, due to due to lack of capital – the year before he graduated.
So this week’s news that India's Essar Group plans to invest billions into getting the iron ore processing plant up and running again is cause for excitement tempered with concern that the steel firm doesn’t revisit the problems of the past.
“First of all, as somebody who grew up here, I recognize that this economic development and the resulting job creation jobs could be a very good thing for the area. But at the same time history hangs pretty heavily on this place,” said Mheza.
“There’s a long, dark legacy of problems with respect to Zisco’s impact on health. Hopefully, this time around, the company and the government will take their responsibility in this regard a bit more seriously and we’ll get it right,” he said.
Industry and Commerce Minister, Welshman Ncube, said he had been assured that all parties involved in the re-opening of the mine were aware of the paramount need for safety.
"This investment qualifies as the investment of the decade for Zimbabwe," the minister said at the recent handover of assets to India's Essar in the mining town Kwekwe in central Zimbabwe.
Ncube says he was confident, after discussions with Essar, that they would “be as vigilant as anyone would be or could be”.
“Every mining operation certainly is a risky business, but if one of the first training drills is focused on health and safety, and the potential hazards are outlined and safety laws are enforced, this mine can be as safe as any mine,” he said.
The road ahead is arduous. The blast furnace were stopped while there was molten iron ore inside.
President Robert Mugabe used the handover ceremony to encourage "the kind world" to invest in Zimbabwe after years of threatening to banish foreign companies from operating in the crisis-plagued country.
"We say, come, don't be afraid,” he said, inviting foreign investors to come to Zimbabwe "as friends not as exploiters".
The ZISCO iron ore processing plant, renamed NewZim Steel, and its mining arm renamed NewZim Minerals, will process 25 million tonnes of ore annually at a cost of between $2 billion and $4 billion.
The initial refurbishment, at a cost of $115 million, will see the plant produce 500,000 tonnes of steel within 18 months, while the second phase would see output surge to 1.2 million tonnes annually within three years – at another cost of $275 million.
“I talk to people from the community, as many people do these days, through social networking – Facebook, that sort of thing. I think the mood is positive, but at the same time a lot of people, like me, vocalize a similar kind of issue, that this time let’s do it right,” said a jobless mechanic, Joshua Moyo.
He said he knows many people, including his father, who suffer from mining-related health problems.
Mheza said there needed to be recognition that that the steel firm has special hazards.
An engineer who declined to be named said: “I understand that this company is reopening a couple of the original developments – we know that the air in those furnaces is likely to be permeated by radon gas, and we know that the solution to that is adequate, monitored, ventilation. In a situation like this, it’s imperative that the company not be left to monitor itself.”
Post published in: Business