Vehicles line up on the Machipanda border, a significant financial hyperlink between Zimbabwean capital Harare and Mozambican port metropolis Beira. Picture provided
A convoy of haulage vans laden with cargo snakes for about 2km on the highway alongside the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border within the jap metropolis of Mutare, ready to cross into the neighbouring nation on a sizzling Saturday morning.
Clearing brokers from each nations tempo up and down doing immigration processes, which generally take hours to finish. To an off-the-cuff observer, it is a signal that due course of is being adopted.
Not so, if you dig deep into the underworld of smuggling.
Oxpeckers went searching for lithium, one of many minerals thought of crucial for each the vitality and transport sectors as a result of it’s a key element within the manufacturing of electrical automobiles and in lithium-ion batteries for vitality storage.
Zimbabwe has Africa’s largest lithium reserves and is ranked as one of many prime 10 nations on the planet producing the smooth, silvery-white ore. The nation has the main lithium manufacturing progress in Southern Africa, surging from 2% to 10% of world provide since 2022.
The federal government banned the export of uncooked, unprocessed lithium in 2022, arguing that the nation would get extra income from the mineral if corporations have been allowed to export solely processed lithium. The ban was additionally meant to cut back the smuggling of the mineral.
Lithium contraband
Whereas many of the lithium is mined by massive corporations like Sinomine, amongst others, a few of it’s within the palms of artisanal and small-scale miners (ASMs), each registered and unregistered, who will smuggle it throughout the border for top costs, based on a supply energetic within the chain. Lithium contraband additionally contains ore stolen from the large mines and hidden amongst different exports.
Alerted to 2024 information collated by personal enterprise intelligence firm CRU Group exhibiting that an untraceable quantity of uncooked lithium is being exported from South Africa into China, Oxpeckers journalist Tatenda Chitagu went undercover, to point out how additional lithium from the area’s largest producer is being smuggled to South Africa. He uncovered simply how simple it’s to facilitate the smuggling of lithium out of Zimbabwe.
“Earlier than the onset of the wet season and a latest intense anti-smuggling operation, between three and 5 vans carrying undocumented lithium would go by this route month-to-month with out anybody noticing,” mentioned a border official in Mutare who can’t be named for safety causes. “If you’re ready to pay, you may actually smuggle something on the border through a intermediary.”
Majori-jori
On the Machipanda border put up, a significant financial hyperlink between Zimbabwean capital Harare and Mozambican port metropolis Beira, younger women and men provided to assist to facilitate the smuggling of products on a truck. They’re generally known as majori-jori (smuggling facilitators).
They function fronts for border staff, troopers and policemen, who search bribes to make sure items can go by the border with out obligation or being declared. They demanded US$300 to facilitate the passing of a 30-tonne truck laden with lithium.
“It’s simple, my buddy. While you pay, the man who scans will get blind. He doesn’t see something unhealthy about your cargo. It will likely be cleared in seconds. The police and troopers get their share. It’s a carried out deal,” they mentioned.
Three extraordinarily assured younger males launched the Oxpeckers workforce to a put up for troopers and police, the place they assured us all would go easily earlier than asking for cash for drinks. We promised to deliver the truck within the night and left.
Investigations present when the lithium crosses into Mozambique, the mineral is bought to Chinese language patrons providing profitable costs who ship it to Beijing through the Beira Port.
“There’s a prepared and profitable market in Mozambique as in comparison with Zimbabwe and there are a lot of Chinese language patrons there,” one of many smuggling facilitators mentioned.
Beitbridge
About 550km south lies the Zimbabwe-Beitbridge border put up to South Africa, the Southern African Improvement Group’s busiest inland port of entry. The put up is fashionable with the newest safety infrastructure, and cargo on haulage vans is scanned at a weir bridge earlier than crossing.
On the floor, it appeared as if the border had been sealed and nothing may cross with out following due course of. However the hordes of people that mill round on the border entrance will let you know something might be smuggled if in case you have the best “intermediary”.
Requested if it was potential to smuggle lithium throughout the border into South Africa, a clearing agent responded: “It is determined by the amount of your lithium. We do all of the offers right here on the official entry.
“We have to know the safety particulars [personnel] on obligation throughout the day, after which pay them earlier than they go to work at night time. We additionally have to pay the immigration officers on obligation on the day you need your stuff to cross. Additionally they have to know the registration quantity and color of the haulage truck ferrying your minerals in order that on the scanning course of they don’t seem to be thorough,” the clearing agent mentioned.
“The place is your stuff in order that I can assess and provide you with the price,” he requested. “If you find yourself prepared, name me and we are going to meet someplace protected first.”
Two hours of observing the motion of vans on the weir and scanning bridge confirmed that in some situations the safety brokers carried out cursory “window dressing” on some vans and actually turned a blind eye to them, whereas in others they did a radical job — generally ordering the elimination of canvas masking the cargo.
“If they’re oiled, it’s not an issue, they’ll flip a blind eye. It’s a sequence, from those on the scanner and weir bridge, to nearly everybody on obligation on the Zimbabwean aspect that day. The Zimbabwean safety particulars will hyperlink you with the opposite guys on the South African aspect. For those who take a big gamble and pay the Zimbabwe aspect solely, you could have hassle with the South African safety particulars,” a intermediary defined.
South Africa
A battery market analyst on the CRU Group, Cameron Hughes, advised Oxpeckers that it had famous a spike in exports of lithium from South Africa in September 2024, throughout which about 147,000 tonnes of ore was shipped to China and would have contained about 2% to 2.5% lithium content material. “We’re nonetheless unclear the place all of this got here from,” he mentioned.
Requested if this spike may very well be attributed to contraband smuggled from Zimbabwe, Paul Miller, director of mining provide consultancy AmaranthCX, mentioned South Africa is a small participant in lithium exports: “We don’t have any lithium focus vegetation in South Africa.”
South Africa has simply three identified lithium mines, situated within the Northern Cape province and KwaZulu-Natal.
“They’re small operations, solely two of which have produced direct transport ore in the previous few years they usually’re probably not significant producers. I stand to be corrected, however I doubt they’d have produced that a lot lithium in any means, form, or type,” Miller mentioned.
“The Zimbabweans have constructed some actually massive processing vegetation and have gotten a a lot larger trade, a lot larger than South Africa, with about two billion {dollars} having been invested in Zimbabwe by the Chinese language,” he added.
Entry to data
Makes an attempt to entry data on lithium exports from the division of commerce, trade and competitors have been unsuccessful as a result of the division’s media relations unit indicated that the detailed nature of Oxpeckers’ inquiries can be higher addressed by the division of mineral and petroleum sources. Statistics South Africa, which publishes month-to-month mining manufacturing indices and mining gross sales information, additionally referred Oxpeckers’ request to the division.
In response to a request for information on lithium manufacturing and exports in recent times, mineral and petroleum sources spokesperson Makhosonke Buthelezi mentioned it had acquired manufacturing information from only one lithium producer. “South Africa solely began producing lithium from just one producer, SA Lithium (Pty) Ltd, from the yr 2023,” he mentioned.
Oxpeckers contacted Mintek — a science council that’s an entity of the minerals division — to search out out what grade of lithium is present in South Africa and the way viable it’s for worldwide markets and the vitality transition, however was referred to the division and that of commerce, trade and competitors.
Throughout a presentation on the “State of the South African mining trade and demanding minerals technique” in a parliamentary assembly in March, Mintek chief govt Molefi Motuku mentioned the nation holds considerably low reserves of lithium.
Oxpeckers despatched inquiries to South Africa’s Border Administration Authority about suspected smuggling of uncooked lithium sources mined by ASMs in Zimbabwe to South Africa per week earlier than publishing, however has not acquired a response.
Porous borders
The CRU Group report signifies that low-grade ore is streaming out of a number of African nations regardless of export bans on unprocessed ore in nations comparable to Zimbabwe. This ore is reportedly bought to markets by artisanal and small-scale miners, which accounted for nearly two-thirds of African provide in 2023.
Oxpeckers found the smugglers are capable of ship this low-grade ore to neighbouring nations with out subjecting themselves to frame formalities.
Within the Burma valley on the Zimbabwean border with Mozambique, for example, there was a makeshift army camp manned by troopers on a mud highway, deep within the hills that demarcate the 2 nations.
“This highway was not constructed by the federal government. A widely known smuggler established this highway and put his graders and bulldozers to clear it. It crosses into Mozambique whereas avoiding the border,” mentioned a smuggler who has been utilizing this highway for 5 years, crossing folks and items illegally.
The native legislation enforcement brokers, together with troopers on the makeshift army base, facilitate the motion of vans alongside this highway into Mozambique in return for bribes, he mentioned.
Zimbabwe Mines Minister Winston Chitando didn’t reply to questions on lithium smuggling. The spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Income Authority, Gladmore Njanji, additionally didn’t reply to questions concerning the smuggling on the time of publication.
This investigation is a part of the Oxpeckers #PowerTracker investigative sequence titled ‘The human price of vitality in Africa’. Discover the #PowerTracker digital instrument and extra investigations https://oxpeckers.org/powertracker/.