Digging for tiny wealth in Zimba: artisanal tin miners share struggles in making ends meets

ON the London Metal Exchange will reveal that the price of tin is between US$18,184 and US$18,530 per tonne – that is thrice the price of copper.

Tin is a soft, silvery white metal with a bluish tinge. Mix it with copper, then you get Bronze. Tin is widely used for platting steel cans used as food containers, in metals used for bearings and in solder.

But here in Chilobe, somewhere in Zimba’s Mapatizya area, artisan miners sweat it out and risk their lives to just get a kilogram of the mineral, which they sell cheaply to buyers from the cities.

One of the miners is Estely Siambalo. She is a 42-year-old mother of seven.

She, together with her children, including her youngest child who is only seven, come to dig in the pits.

It is a dangerous venture and the miners do not wear any protective clothing.

Estely has to involve her children if she has to increase her chances of getting enough tin to sell and meet her family’s needs.

“On a day, if I am lucky, I can get a cup or two,” she says.

A cupful of tin is roughly about 200ml and can weigh about three kilogrammes. “We used to sell it at K35 per kilogramme,” says Estely. “But that is after the buyers have sieved and separated the bad ones from the good ones. So, sometimes, what you thought was three kilogrammes can even come down to 1.5 kilogram,” she says.

It’s a huge gamble.

“Sometimes, it can take you a week to get a cupful of good quality tin,” says Estely.

And yet she has been mining in these pits since 1985.

Asked to point out at least one thing she has bought from the money she has earned, she cannot lift a finger.

“There is nothing significant. We just do it because there is nothing else to do here. The area is hilly and farming is not easy because of the stones and landscape,” she says.

She is not alone.

Similonga Makowa is also a regular at the site.

He says on some days, the site can have as many as 30 people digging for the tin with rudimentary tools such as shovels, chisels and hammers.

Some women can also be seen with woven sieves which they use to sieve the mineral in readiness to separate the good quality from the bad ones with a magnet.

“One of the things that delay us is the benching [the processing of putting some kind of scaffolding to protect the pit from caving in]. It takes a lot of time, but otherwise, on a good day, you can get even more than three kilogrammes a day,” he says.

Ironically, it seems Mr Makowa knows what risks come with mining from the site but he turns a blind eye to them.

“It’s not safe, I know. But what can I do,” he says. “That is why we need enough man power here to guarantee safety.”

Luckily for the miners, there has been no accident at the site.

“There is another tungsten pit nearby where the walls caved in and injured a woman. As for us here, we haven’t recorded any accident yet,” says the miner.

In a distance, sitting under a tree at the foot of a hill, is a buyer with a scale, waiting for the miners to bring out the mineral.

A brief chat with the man who only identifies himself as Biggy reveals that he was just an agent for an unnamed buyer.

“I just come to buy it on behalf of some people,” he says in a tone that was unfriendly and unwelcoming.

It was obvious he did not want to say more.

It is these compounding reasons that Caritas Zambia through a Swedish faith-based organisation, Diakonia, is working with the artisanal miners here to try and see how they can turn the tables and be able to earn more from the mineral than they are currently earning.

Chepa Lesa is programmes officer at Caritas Zambia. She says since the organisation discovered the group of miners here in June 2019, it has, with the help of Diakonia-funded Strengthened Accountability Programme (SAP II) project decided to step in and help.

“What Caritas Zambia is mainly doing in Chilobe is facilitating the attainment of a mining licence because when we went there initially, they were mining illegally and the price at which they were selling tin for was very low, at K35 per kilogramme,” she says.

She adds: “They also told us that it takes them days and sometimes weeks to mine that same kilogram and since we are well acquainted with the content of the Mines and Minerals Act of 2015, we knew that if they had at least gotten a mining licence, it would actually help them have that bargaining power, be legalised and be able to set the price for those minerals themselves.”

She wants the miners to quickly get a mining license if they are to benefit from the mineral.

Ms Lesa says the miners are being exploited by briefcase buyers because they lack proper documentation.

She says apart from Southern province, Caritas Zambia is also working in North Western, Copperbelt and Luapula where artisan miners face many challenges, among them safety and lack of proper equipment.

“As it stands right now, they have already registered as a cooperative and they are pushing for a licence and we shall be there to see how that goes,” she says.

Maimbo Kalenge is Diakonia country office programmes officer. She is happy that the group has obtained a cooperative certificate.

“So, we are hoping that with the coming in of the licence, the group is going to have more benefits accrued to them and we believe that when our communities are empowered, all other associated livelihood activities will be financed by themselves and they will be more reliant,” she says.

Joseph Poipoi who is the Chilobe mining group chairperson says officers from the department of mines in Choma have already been to the mining site to survey it and get its coordinates.

“All that is remaining is to get the consent letter from the chief [Chief Simwatachela] and we shall be good to go,” he says.

The other side of Mpali actor Jairos, aka Joe Swax

MANY know him simply as Jairos the farm manager from Zambezi Magic’s popular drama series Mpali.

Well! Who would blame them anyway?

But there is another side of Joe 'Swax' Sakala that many people don’t know - well, except maybe for a few others - he can rap too.

Swax as he is known in the music circles was born in Kitwe at the Kitwe Central Hospital sometime in the early 1990’s.

Swax, who apart from acting and music is also a qualified Information Technology (IT) specialist told the Weekend Mail that he started music when he was still very young but only got to record his first single titled Battery Dead in 2007.

“The interest in music kept growing as I grew older,” he says. Battery Dead featured Shine Di Asylum and Jay B.

Jay B, who is a close friend and mentor also happened to be the one that produced the song at Retro Nation.

“...and the rest is history,” he says.

Discovering his music talent and coming to settle for it as a career was not easy for young Swax as he had to deal with the challenges and dilemma that comes with trying to juggle between class and music.

“Someone successful in the music industry would tell you that it’s not an easy road, but we had to do what we had to do - if it meant skipping class in order for me to go to the studio, I had to do it,” he says.

He says he owes part of his success to his parents who were relatively supportive of him. “...but school had to come first.”

He says his music is for peace, love and harmony.

Looking back at Battery Dead, his first ever single, Swax says he owes it all to the song for most of his success today.

“Too much! Yenze hit, well, to me and my friends [laughs]. I wouldn't change anything about that jam cause it was what it was,” he says.

Married to actress and rapper Lissy who plays Ntombi, Nguzu’s fourth wife in Mpali, Swax has a catalogue of songs to his name.

Among his popular songs are Tibaza Che and Hyper Sase.

“I have worked with the likes of Retro Nation, DeeDz, Mustang, legendary artiste Harry B, Mixtizo, and Bobby Jay. I have also worked with Phili Kay, Mustafa and a lot of other talented people still in the underground and still making good music,” he says.

Swax says he would love to work with renowned acts in the name of Chisenga Katongo [formerly Crisis], Krytic, Jay Rox, Slapdee, Chef 187 and Muzo aka Alfonso who he says is his favourite rapper.

Asked how he rates the music and entertainment industry in general, Swax who has a number of mixtapes to his name says it is steady but more still needs to be done.

“The industry is safe,” he says. “I remember there once was a time when local artistes weren’t rated as highly as foreign artistes. But now, we have artistes that are main evening shows alongside international acts. So, I can say, we are there and we are still going. Big ups to all the musicians making that music for change.”

His first album was The Kafue Hustle.

“The album was a success I received a lot of positive reviews from peers and fans about it,” he says.

Swax says much as he is into acting now, he will not stop recording and releasing music. He says music introduced him to film and turning his back on it isn’t in his plans.

“I owe everything I have achieved today to my music. No one knew me before I started music and that is why before I do anything, I think and plan how I am going to do it to my best capabilities,” he says.

Other mix-tapes to his name include The Kafue Hustle, Depo Muzik volume 1 to 5, Cloud 9 Media and Retroduction which was more like a Retro Nation compilation.

Chiefs speak out on North-West wealth: mining of copper now taking place at large scale

NORTH-WESTERN Province is touted as the next copperbelt, as mining of the metal is now taking place at a large scale.

Although some dispute this nomenclature – copperbelt – being bestowed on North-Western Province, based on the outline of the deposits, which are not arranged in belt formation, but in fields.

But still, North-Western Province now accounts for over 40 percent of the national annual copper output.

And most recently, gold has also been discovered in the province, and is attracting prospectors in droves.

But the traditional leaders, who see themselves as the guardians of the natural resources, are urging caution with the exploration of the natural resources in the province.

At the second North-Western Province Chiefs’ Indaba held in Solwezi recently, the traditional leaders voiced out their concerns.

The indaba was held under the theme: “Land, environment and accountable mining.”

The meeting was attended by 16 chiefs and representatives in the province, who discussed issues affecting development in the province.

Chief Mumena of the Kaonde in Kalumbila district said there is a cartel of individuals fueling and sponsoring conflicts and wrangles in chiefdoms for selfish reasons.

He said there is a group of people causing confusions in chiefdoms whose leaders refuse to bend the laws that govern land management.

He said in turn, the chiefs are distracted and spend more time fighting one another at the expense of developing their chiefdoms.

“God has provided us with these natural resources such as gold so that the common man can benefit. But we spend more time sorting out sponsored differences that are meant to distract us from delivering development to our people,” he said.

Chief Ishindi of the Lunda people of Zambezi district dispelled allegations that some chiefs are selling land to investors.

Land in Zambia is divided into state land and customary land, where state land comprises about 6 percent and 94 percent of the land is owned under customary law. It is believed that different land tenure systems have their advantages and disadvantages.

Customary systems, which are often based on traditional, unwritten, and locally relevant rules about how to use and allocate land and resources, facilitate social cohesion, but activists believe may not be able to withstand increasing pressure on land and resources both from within the community and from the outside, compared with statutory systems which provide written legal rules or written case law about these issues.

In that vein, Chief Ishindi suggested that a law to allow chiefs to be entitled to a certain percentage of the total revenue generated from investments within their chiefdoms be formulated.

“That money can then be put in a chiefdom trust fund for the benefit of the people. We shouldn't be begging, if anything, it is you that should be begging from us,” he said.

Senior Chief Musele of the Lunda people of Kalumbila district said the Government should take keen interest in addressing the challenges being faced in chiefdoms.

“There isn't enough political will from the Government and this has been a major problem on our part. We also want a share of the money realised from the mines that are in our land,” he said.

Speaking earlier when he opened the indaba, North-Western Province permanent secretary Willies Manjimela called for prudent management of the resources.

“The province is endowed with many natural resources and it does not give us the authority to plunder the resources that God has given us,” said Mr Manjimela.

He said land in Zambia remains an important natural resource and tool for national development, hence the need to nurture and protect it from degradation.

He said there is a need for the customary land administration system to be transparent and effective to the benefit of those that depend on it for their livelihood.

He said over 60 percent of Zambia's population depends on customary land, mostly for agricultural purposes.

As is the case with most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, land is a central means of production in Zambia, where agriculture remains a source of livelihood for most people in rural areas.

A study done by Sustainable Agricultural Intensification Research and Learning in Africa (SAIRLA) in 2019, said that the majority of the Zambian population depend on agriculture for all or part of their livelihoods, therefore, access to land plays an important role in eradicating poverty in Zambia.

Indeed, the message seems to have resonated well with the traditional leaders who among other things resolved to uphold the aspirations of their subjects.

Other resolutions that were made at the indaba include reviewing and reconciling chiefdom boundaries to mitigate wrangles, documenting well tabulated succession plans in chiefdoms, and also the promotion of periodical dialogue among chiefs in the region.

The indaba was sponsored by a consortium of 14 civil society organisations with support from Swedish faith based organisation Diakonia under its Strengthened Accountability Programme (SAP) II project.

Diakonia country director Geoffrey Chongo said even as chiefs struggle to reach consensus regarding land management, they must remain steadfast and be champions of peace and harmony in the province.

He said they should not be distracted by the poverty and under-development levels in the region but keep lobbying for better ways of mining and environmental protection.

“We are gathered here to fight a common enemy in the name of poverty, misery and under-development. Let us fight social ills together as you are the custodians of peace and culture. We acknowledge the potential that this province holds,” he said.

Among the 14 CSOs include Extractive Industries Transparency Alliance, Caritas Zambia, Action Aid, Media Institute in Southern Africa, Zambia Land Alliance, FODEP and Youth Alliance for Development.