HARARE – The High Court has dismissed with costs an urgent chamber application by Chegutu West legislator Dexter Nduna who was suing gold miner RioZim for allegedly extending its operations into his Danly mine situated in the mining town.

In dismissing Nduna’s application for a spoliation order, Justice David Mangota noted that the MP had failed to provide any evidence that the mining claim belonged to him.

“The applicant, it is evident, portrays the picture that he has a claim at the mine. He insists that the second respondent (RioZim) invaded his claim. He produces no evidence which shows that he has any mining claim in any part of Zimbabwe, let alone at the mine,” the judge ruled on Thursday.

“The prospecting licence he attached to his application, it has been observed, has no relationship at all with the mine. Nor do their contents translate into conferring upon him the right to any claim in Zimbabwe. All they do is to allow him to prospect for minerals in Zimbabwe.”

Justice Mangota further noted that the application was contradictory and did not show a clear picture of the events that had led to the filing of the urgent application at the court.

“The application is everything which an urgent application should not be. It contains an incoherent narration of events. It is contradictory in many respects. It is panel-beaten in other respects. It is a complete sham which cannot be condoned let alone accepted. The application is dismissed with costs.”

Nduna had asked the court to suspend current activities being carried out by one Langton Ndlovu and RioZim, and that he be declared the lawful owner of the controversial mine claim.

He said police, who were also cited as respondents, had failed to protect his business interests.

He wrote in an affidavit: “On the strength of the prospecting licence related above, I took up and have been in peaceful and undisturbed possession of the said claims carrying out my prospecting operations. On or about August 24, 2021, I went to the mine to go about my normal business there and the three barred me from operating on my claim without my consent and had thus halted all mining activities.”

Nduna said upon inquiring with the respondents, he was told that they had been given a “verbal authority by provincial mining director and could not give any lawful explanation to conduct themselves in that manner.”

Nduna said they went to the extent of erecting a fence, partitioning the mine.