LUPANE villagers have raised concern that they may not benefit from the exploitation of methane gas in the district saying they are denied employment opportunities.
Chief Reporter
Estimates say Zimbabwe has 40 trillion cubic feet of potentially recoverable gas in the Lupane-Lubimbi area.
The development of the Lupane coalbed methane gas project has the potential to boost the country’s energy generation capacity.
A recent World Bank report urged the government to develop a clear strategy to extract the gas, which is expected to lead to an economic boom in the region.
However, Lupane villagers who took part in a public meeting organised by the Information and Media Panel of Inquiry said they feared they would be left out.
A villager who identified himself as Simon from the Mzola area, said: “We don’t have development here, we have no clinics and the gas projects are not benefiting us.
“Each time we seek employment we are told there are no jobs, but people from other regions get employed.”
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However, he did not specify which regions were taking over jobs.
Recently Matabeleland North Provincial Affairs minister Cain Mathema told Southern Eye that he wanted to see the exploitation of methane gas in the district turning Lupane into an industrial zone.
“Lupane has a lot of gas and can be a centre of distribution regionally. Russia sells gas all over Europe and we want to establish gas tanks that will supply gas nationally and regionally,” he said.
Implementation of the Lupane gas project, which was granted national project status by the government, is expected to ease the country’s power woes.
Companies like China-Africa Sunlight Energy (Pvt) Ltd have already contracted Environmental Guardians Services to conduct an environmental impact assessment for exploration of coal and methane gas at its Gwayi concession.
Last year, China-Africa Sunlight applied for power-generation licences from the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority to establish a power station to produce 120 megawatts (MW) electricity.
Studies have revealed that coal-bed methane deposits in the country have capacity to produce 300MW of electricity.
