Only in a lawless country does a foreign company defy court orders and threaten the health of school children

There are moments when arrogance and disrespect reach levels so brazen they defy comprehension.

What does it say about a country when a foreign company can openly defy its courts, trample on its laws, and endanger the health of its children without consequence?

To directly receive articles from Tendai Ruben Mbofana, please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08

What does it say about its leaders when such a company, instead of being swiftly brought to book, is protected and seemingly given license to continue its violations?

These questions hang heavily over Zimbabwe today as the disturbing case of Shuntai Investments unfolds before our eyes.

Here we have a Chinese-owned company, intent on constructing a cement and lime plant barely 497 metres from Bryden Country School in Chegutu.

This is despite overwhelming evidence that the dust and toxic fumes from such an operation would pose severe health risks to children, including respiratory illnesses and even lung cancer.

Parents, school authorities, and local stakeholders raised these concerns in good faith, appealing to the company to move its operations further away.

Instead of engaging responsibly, Shuntai arrogantly insisted on pushing ahead.

When the High Court of Zimbabwe intervened and ordered the company to stop construction, one would have expected that to be the end of the matter.

But not in Zimbabwe.

In complete defiance of that order, Shuntai carried on, forcing the school back into court again and again.

Even when Justice Samuel Deme fined the company for contempt and reaffirmed the order to cease operations, Shuntai continued building as if nothing had happened.

To add insult to injury, the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) somehow found it fit to grant Shuntai an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment certificate under circumstances that can only be described as dubious.

The same faulty report previously rejected was suddenly deemed acceptable, without any meaningful amendments addressing stakeholder concerns.

What does this tell us?

It tells us that in Zimbabwe, justice can be mocked, the rule of law can be undermined, and public institutions can be captured to serve the interests of the powerful, even when this comes at the expense of children’s health.

It tells us that foreign companies like Shuntai feel emboldened to treat Zimbabwe as a lawless frontier, a place where profits come before people and where even the courts can be ignored with impunity.

It tells us that our leaders, entrusted with protecting the nation, are complicit—whether through silence, negligence, or active collusion.

This is not an isolated case.

Across the country, Chinese companies have been given free rein to plunder our resources, displace communities, bribe traditional leaders, and devastate the environment.

Villagers are driven from their ancestral lands without fair compensation.

Workers are subjected to appalling abuse and exploitation.

Rivers are poisoned, forests are cleared, mountains are destroyed, and yet billions of dollars made from our minerals are shipped out of Zimbabwe, with next to nothing ploughed back into the communities left behind in ruins.

And when ordinary people cry out, when they resist, the heavy hand of the state often comes down—not on the perpetrators, but on the victims.

In Redcliff, my own hometown, residents have long complained about the environmental and health hazards posed by Livetouch Investments, another Chinese cement manufacturer.

The dust and fumes from its operations have been linked to respiratory illnesses, with schools and households bearing the brunt.

These are not just fears or assumptions.

In March 2024, Kwekwe General Hospital revealed to NewsHub publication that 20 people had already succumbed to silicosis, while others remained hospitalised—some of them from Redcliff itself.

Investigations supported by the Information for Development Trust (IDT) further established that residents of Stoneclair Park in Redcliff, workers at Diamond Cement, and employees at the nearby SteelMakers plant are suffering acute exposure to these harmful emissions, underscoring the devastating reality of unchecked industrial pollution in our communities.

And yet, just as in Chegutu, the company continues with little regard for the wellbeing of the people.

The pattern is the same: flagrant disregard for the law, collusion by regulatory bodies, and silence or even complicity from those in power.

Zimbabweans must begin to ask themselves: is this not a new form of colonization?

We rejected colonialism more than four decades ago because we refused to be treated as second-class citizens in our own land.

Thousands of brave men and women paid the ultimate price to rid this country of a system that oppressed and exploited us.

Yet today we find ourselves under a new colonizer—not wearing the face of the settler, but of the Chinese investor who, backed by our own ruling elite, rides roughshod over us.

This colonization may not come with guns and conquest, but it is no less insidious.

It comes through the capture of our resources, the poisoning of our environment, the corruption of our leaders, and the trampling of our laws.

When a foreign company can ignore a High Court ruling with impunity, what message does that send to Zimbabweans?

It says our courts don’t matter, our laws don’t matter, our lives don’t matter.

It says what matters is the money flowing into the pockets of those in power.

And when that company goes further to threaten the health of school children—our most vulnerable, our future—then we have reached a level of national disgrace that no patriotic citizen can accept.

We should not delude ourselves: Shuntai Investments would never dare behave this way in China itself.

No company would dream of defying a court order there, let alone threatening the health of Chinese children.

They know the consequences would be swift and severe.

Yet in Zimbabwe, because our leaders have mortgaged our sovereignty for personal gain, these companies behave as if they are untouchable.

It is time we said enough.

Zimbabweans must summon the same courage and determination that inspired the liberation struggle, but this time not with arms of war.

Our weapons must be the power of collective resistance, civic pressure, and moral clarity.

We must resist these new colonizers who think Zimbabwe is theirs to pillage.

We must hold our government accountable for allowing this outrage to happen under its watch.

We must demand transparency from bodies like EMA, which have become complicit in enabling corporate impunity.

And above all, we must protect our children, whose right to health, education, and a safe environment is being trampled for the sake of profit.

We cannot afford to be passive.

If we allow companies like Shuntai to succeed, if we allow our laws to be mocked and our children endangered, then we are surrendering our dignity, our sovereignty, and our future.

The battle against colonialism was fought so that Zimbabweans could stand tall as free people in their own land.

That freedom must mean more than waving a flag or singing an anthem.

It must mean the right to live with dignity, to be protected by the law, and to be respected by those who come to invest in our country.

Only in a lawless country can a foreign company defy court orders and threaten the health of children with impunity.

Zimbabweans must decide whether that is the kind of country we want to be. If the answer is no, then the time to act is now.