Jindal faces off with community over mining land in Mozambique
MAPUTO — Indian company Jindal is the latest company to become embroiled in a mining resettlement scandal in Mozambique that threatens to trip up the booming coal sector.On August 14, amid much fanfare, Mozambican President Armando Guebuza inaugurated Jindal’s massive new coal mine in northwestern Tete province that hugs the mighty Zambezi River.It was the third-biggest mine of its kind in the country, where annual economic growth of 7% has been fuelled by revenue from one of the world’s largest unexploited coal fields.Two decades after of a crippling civil war, it is just the kind of investment Mozambique welcomes and which — if well managed — may help pull it out of poverty.Jindal, which is also a steel maker, eyes exporting 10-million tonnes of coal annually, cashing in on industrial development in India and China.But just days before the inauguration of the mine, anger at the company’s failure to relocate 2,500 nearby residents boiled over into conflict.Irate locals — most of wh...
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