MARANGE – About 60 families in the Arda Transau area of Marange were recently holed up in houses without roofs after strong winds blew off the roofs owing to poor workmanship by the Chinese. This emerged during a media tour of the resettlement area this week.

Mines and Mining Development minister, Obert Mpofu recently declared that houses constructed at Marange were of a world standard.

“You have seen what the companies (at Marange) have done, the kind of settlements in Chiadzwa right now are compared to nothing anywhere in the world,” said Mpofu.

“The communities have benefitted immensely you know; the schools, clean water, the clinics and roads which were never provided for them before this development took place.

“There is a lot of it; there is employment creation and many other developments which they would never have experienced if it were not for that development in that area,” he said.

However, the latest discoveries point to a serious contrast to Mpofu’s statements.

Romeo Daniel Mutsunguma, Anjin Investments’ relocation co-ordinator, told journalists the roofs had been poorly secured by the company’s construction arm.

“There has been a lot of cutting down of trees in this area as people seek alternative sources of energy as well as clearing of land for other purposes,” Mutsunguma said.

“That process has seen close to 60 houses having their roofs blown off by strong winds as the nails used in securing the roofing materials were the wrong ones,” he added.

According to construction experts, roofing nails used in securing asbestos should have washers to help the securing process. However, the Chinese company which constructed the 300 units is said to have used the wrong type of nails. It is alleged they used flat nails instead of the recommended washer-fastening type.

“Some of the houses might have had some defects, which of course include the roofing issues. But as things stand now, those challenges have been fixed and our hope is that there will be no serious problems later on,” Mutsunguma added.

He also said the company had deployed a construction expert who was on standby in case there were other faults that need to be attended to.

“We have since reinforced the roofing sheets with proper nails to avoid similar mishaps again. We have also deployed a maintenance expert on site so that he can attend to the problems as and when they arise,” he added.

The company is said to have spent millions of dollars on the construction of the four-roomed houses while also providing water to the families resettled there.

However, the units are different from those provided by the other three companies also mining for diamonds in the Marange area namely Mbada Diamonds, the Diamond Mining Co-operation (DMC), and Marange Diamonds.

Anjin did not provide power to the housing units but opted to connect water and also to tar a section of the road that leads to its units.

Munyaradzi Machacha, Anjin managing director for Zimbabwe said the terms of the company’s agreement with government allowed the four companies to choose what he said were extra provisions.

“Our agreements were to construct these houses,” Machacha said.

“The contracts then allowed the companies to then choose one other activity outside the provision of the houses that it could also shoulder in terms of financing.

“As Anjin, we opted for water connections and road surfacing. Others then opted for electrification of these homes, something we could have loved to do resources permitting,” he added

By Daily Mail