•Sir Benedict Peters
The foray of Nigeria’s stalwart investor, Sir Benedict Peters, into the platinum mining fields of Zimbabwe is sparking social anxiety over resource accountability and corporate integrity as the Southern African country entrusts Bravura with delivering much needed resource benefits from a prized concession it recently secured in the country.
Sir Peters is also the Chairman of Nigeria’s Aiteo Group whose subsidiary acquired and operates the oil and gas assets divested by Shell, Total and Eni in the Oil Mining Lease (OML) 29 onshore Niger Delta. The acquired stakes conferred Aiteo with operatorship of producing Nembe Creek oil fields and export conduit facilities, establishing the company as a strategic indigenous player in the Nigerian petroleum industry.
In Zimbabwe, Sir Peters promotes Bravura Zimbabwe (Pvt) Limited, which is set to explore, develop and produce platinum in the Serui mining concession in Selous, Mashonaland West Province of the country.
According to a report by Business Times of Zimbabwe, Benedict Peters is now in the middle of legal contest between the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development on the one hand, and a mining firm, Amari.
Sir Peters is said to have taken advantage of license revocation process of the Zimbabwean government to snap up a mining right in the Serui field. The concession is previously operated by locally established Amari which is reported to have since instituted a legal claim of $500 million on the government.
Local industry analysts expect Bravura to offset the claims and demonstrate operating integrity through transparency and accountability in the country where government officials are accused of shady deals with foreign investors.
Zimbabwe relies on its large platinum reserves to attract the right level of foreign direct investments, but local sentiments about corruption in government is still high and allegation of official corruption shroud mining deals. This has made investors in the Zimbabwean platinum mines vulnerable to suspicion of backstage dealings with officials.
Revocation of licenses which gave occasion to Sir Peters’ entry into the fray hangs on the balance between national interest and vested interests.
Ministry of Mines and Mining Development had cancelled a mining license held by Amari on the grounds of poor work programme, along with about 213 dormant mining concessions allegedly held by resource speculators at a time the government is pressed for urgent revenue.
On the other hand, local concerns are high that deal transparency and resource accountability are very low in Zimbabwe’s mining sector, with fears that dubious investors could still connive with corrupt officials to secure mining concessions for speculative purposes.
At issue in Sir Peters’ mining investments in Zimbabwe are the demand by Amari for compensation for previous exploration campaigns that confirmed significant platinum reserves in the concession, and capability questions trailing Bravura’s industry pedigree.
Amari is said to claim compensation for millions of dollars already invested in driving successful exploration programmes which, it claims, discovered significant 18 million ounces of platinum before the Zimbabwean Ministry of Mines and Mining Development revoked its operating license in the Serui concession in 2011.
Operating license for the recovered Serui concession was later reported to have been re-awarded to Bravura Zimbabwe under a Platinum Mining Project Agreement with the Zimbabwe government in 2019.
Award of the license to Bravura, said to have been transacted under the supervision of President Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe, enabled Bravura to muster US$1.0 billion for financing work programmes that would activate actual mining operations in one and half years.
Aside from flexing strong financial muscle to fund operations, local industry pundits also raise questions over Bravura’s proficiency level in handling complicated processes involved in platinum mining. Most of them demand the company’s industry pedigree.
“The platinum group metals deposits at Hartley have in the past proved too complex to mine, even for experienced miners,” a located newspaper pointed out in a report.
But a Nigerian investment analyst who claims not to have details of Sir Peters’ investments in Zimbabwean mines pointed out, however, that an investor “is not expected to be the technical guy in the field. He could hire the best hands to achieve his commercial goals.”
Our source stated that staking as much as US1.0 billion in foreign investment demonstrates that Bravura and its promoters might have convincing business plan and operations strategies.
Zimbabweans also raised curiosity about issues surrounding Sir Benedict Peters’ travails with anti graft agencies in Nigeria which we can confirm he has been cleared of all allegations by the Economic and Financial Crime (EFCC) since 2017; and court pronouncement cleared the businessman of allegations of misdeeds, and compelled the EFCC to delist him from prosecution list.
These travails informed the wave of concerns about his entry into the Zimbabwean mining industry with an intimidating stride.
Zimbabwean industry watchdogs now wait to see how the Nigerian business mogul would calm the storm raised by his turbulent arrival in the local mining sector. Litmus test would be how Sir Peters would manage Amari’s exit from the concession to pave way for smooth entry for Bravura.
Second would be the integrity of Bravura’s work programme in the mining fields. Concerns surround the company’s capacity to prove a better operating partner than Amari in delivering full economic goals of the Zimbabwean government. Expectedly, Peters will be in Zimbabwe this week to meet Mnangagwa to sign off on the concessions. It was alleged that Peters left Nigeria for Ghana at the heat of the several allegations against him, a claim his Nigerian office has since refuted.