Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. Zimplats Holdings Limited (Zimplats) Mupani Mine has scooped the Safety, Health, and Environment (SHE) award at the Association of Mine Managers of Zimbabwe (AMMZ) annual conference and general meeting in Victoria Falls.
The award was part of a segment during the conference, highlighting Mupani Mine’s dedication to enhancing SHE practices, establishing it as the mine that has shown the most consistency.
Speaking during the SHE Awards presentation, AMMZ chairman and Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe SHE committee member Alfred Chinyere said despite the challenges that some mines faced, others had shown impressive results.
“So, when we evaluated all the mines, looking at their performance of 2025 compared to 2024, most of the mines could not attain anything above 7% in terms of improvement,” he said.
“…but today’s main award will go to this mine (Mupani Mine), which is an award for excellence in safety technology innovation. So, this mine has set a global benchmark by becoming the first room and pillar operation to deploy autonomous Senvig TH545I dump trucks underground.
“The innovation also progressed from a trial of four trucks, and according to the evaluation, the programme has eradicated exposure related to incidents in an automated haulage zone.”
Hence, he said the award acknowledged the amount of investment that had been put in by Mupani.
He said despite an overall downward safety measurement performance for the entire industry, which fell to 41% from 48%, the association would continue to put measures in place that helped companies improve their SHE performances.
“We continue, as SHE Committee, to offer a service under the AMMZ, where we champion the SHE activities,” Chinyere said.
“The key issue that we have been handling is our participation in legal changes that are happening right now, especially the OSH (Occupational Safety and Health) Bill. We are also participating in that; hopefully it will come to a stage where it will also go through.”
The modern mining sector is placing increasing importance on SHE and Environment and Social Governance (ESG) practices as part of efforts to promote sustainable mining.
Chinyere also reported a lower fatal incident rate, down to 41% this year from last year’s 48%, reflecting the effectiveness of SHE initiatives.
“Talking generally about safety performance, our mining industry continues to face challenges with regard to ‘fall of ground’. Whilst we have realised an improvement in terms of performance regarding the fall of ground incidents, the other year, in 2024, we were sitting at around 48%, as in the contribution to our fatal accidents,” he said.
“This year, in 2025, we experienced a slight decrease, which is around 41%. The improvement also came about because, as part of our SHE initiatives, we have since included fall of ground as a measuring parameter. So, we continue to hope that the initiatives that we are running at the moment will continue to make a significant impact with regard to fall off ground.”
In mining, fall of ground is an unplanned collapse or movement of rock from the roof, walls, or face of a mine, posing a serious safety hazard in both underground and surface mining.
Fall of ground is a leading cause of injuries and fatalities in both underground and surface mines.
Ayrshire Mine was also recognised as the most improved mine during the SHE awards.
“But overall, we had an improvement, and we really commend all the mines who participated in these competitions. I also would like to talk about the mine rescue activities,” Chinyere said.
“We actually also had quite a good season, but one of the issues that we have noted is that some of the mines are still struggling with regard to the provision of mainly vehicles, and we implore the mines that don’t have the vehicles at the moment to also prioritise and provide vehicles.”
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