MINING giant Rio Zim have upped their fight for control of Sengwa’s coal fields with a High Court application challenging the decision by the Ministry of Mines through the permanent secretary to cancel their mining special grant and giving it to a rival firm.
The company which has been in control of the coal fields for more than four decades and invested over US$5 million in exploration and feasibility studies, argues that the Special Grant has been unlawfully cancelled and that only the President had the power of cancelling the Special Grant No. 849 for Sengwa Colliery, a key coal asset which was then given to George Mining Private Limited, by the Ministry.
Through their lawyer Admire Rubaya, Sengwa Colliery described the cancellation of their mining special grant in August 2025 by the ministry as “a story of power, impropriety, and the profound betrayal of a national trust, ripped away in a matter of weeks through a process so tainted by illegality, haste, and disregard for the rule of law. . .”
Sengwa Colliery further argues that under the country’s laws only the President has the power to cancel a special mining grant, and only after giving at least 12 months’ notice, adding that no such notice was issued and contends that the cancellation was therefore unlawful.
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“In cancelling the Special Grant, the ministry did not merely err, they committed a brazen usurpation of executive authority and further compounded this illegality by irrationally handing over this multi-generational asset to the 5th Respondent (George Mining) an entity whose financial substance and technical capacity remain, conspicuously and tellingly, a mystery hidden from this Court.
The rule of law is not subordinate to administrative caprice, and that titles granted through a process rooted in nullity are themselves void. Applicants ask the Court to stand as a bastion against the erosion of property rights and the shadowy re-allocation of national resources,” their papers read.
“Of the six Respondents, five have elected not to oppose. Only the 5th Respondent, the direct beneficiary of the impugned conduct has come forward to defend the indefensible.
“The silence of the ministry is deafening, as it is damning. It constitutes a tacit, unequivocal concession that the Applicant's allegations are true and that their own conduct cannot withstand judicial scrutiny.”
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