Mozambique: Vale says it fulfilled its duties in resettling families

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Mozambique: Vale says it fulfilled its duties in resettling families

2:48 CAT | 17 Jan 2022

File photo: DW

Reacting to allegations of alleged “abuse”, Vale says it has fulfilled its duties regarding the resettling of those [previously] living near its Moatize mine.

“The company reiterates that it has fully complied with the approved resettlement plan and other inherent duties, as well as with all the elements subsequently agreed with the Government and with the communities covered in relation to different matters in the social sphere,” declares a note seen by Lusa News agency on Friday, 14 January.

At issue are complaints from the Mozambican Bar Association and the Associação Rede dos Direitos Humanos regarding alleged “injustices and abuses” in the resettlement of at least 760 families who lived in the area covered by Vale’s activities in Moatize in Tete province in the centre of the country.

According to the two entities, in August, 2010, the families were relocated to a new neighbourhood without decent housing conditions 40 kilometres from Moatize, and the compensation to which they were entitled was not paid in full.

“The behaviour of this mining company created psychological and emotional traumas in the affected families, in addition to having lost their means of livelihood and being subject to a worsening of their state of impoverishment,” a note released by the Bar Association of Mozambique on Monday of last week alleges.

The association is demanding that Vale pays one billion meticais (€14 million) in compensation to the families, in a process that has been running in the Administrative Tribunal since 2020.

In Vale’s reaction, the Brazilian mining company prefers not to comment on the Mozambican Bar Association’s demand, as it deals with “matters under discussion in the competent courts”, but reiterates that it has complied with the “duties imposed by law and by the mining contract signed with the government”.

Read: Bar Association demands Vale pay compensation for botched resetlement

Source: Lusa