summary

The Musina/Makhado Special Economic Zone comprises two geographical locations that address unique industrial clusters. The site in Musina targets the light industrial and agro-processing clusters, while the Makhado site is a metallurgical/mineral beneficiation complex. A third site has been identified to target the petrochemical industries.

The SEZ is strategically located along the N1 North-South route into the Southern African Development Community (SADC), very close to the border between South Africa and Zimbabwe. It forms part of the Trans-Limpopo Spatial Development Initiative (SDI) and has been developed as part of greater regional plans to unlock investment and economic growth and address the development of skills and employment. Newly built infrastructure enables full utilisation of the area’s unique combination of mineral endowments and supports industries in the full-value chains for mineral beneficiation, agro-processing and light industrial manufacturing.

The strategic location of the SEZ and its close proximity to the main land-based route into SADC and the African continent, together with supporting incentives and a good logistics backbone, will make it the location of choice for investment in the mineral beneficiation, agro-processing and petrochemical industries.

For more information visit the MMSEZ website

Metallurgy is energy-intensive. Indeed, steel is dubbed “congealed energy”. Given South Africa’s severe constraints, a dedicated 3,300MW coal-fired power plant (to be built by PowerChina) was originally planned to supply the zone’s electricity needs.

However, in the wake of China’s 2021 pledge not to build any new coal-fired power projects abroad, Fossil Free South Africa sought and received (somewhat oblique) confirmation from the Chinese Ambassador to South Africa that the MMSEZ power plant would not go ahead.

The MMSEZ SOC has since publicly announced that solar PV generation and renewables will replace the thermal electricity plant.

However, Environmental Authorisation was granted in February 2022 without any conditions attached, and makes express reference to the EIA Report, Scoping Report and revised site layout, which include the coal-fired power station. Moreover, the specialist report on the power supply plans, which forms part of the EIAr, states plainly that solar PV power generation is not viable and has been rejected as an option.

In July 2022 it was further announced that “green” coal-to-hydrogen fuel for electricity generation was now a part of the power supply plans mix.

Note: Ignoring the contribution of the power supply completely, annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the coal-fueled zone will still be in region of 33.7MtCO2e with very serious consequences for South Africa.

Coal is not just dirty, it’s thirsty, especially coking coal.

The hitch is that where the coking plant for the smelter is to be located, there is no water.

Instead of changing the plan or changing the location, there is an unfeasible R13.8bn plan to meet the 125Mm3 required annually for the zone’s operation (80Mn3 of which is required by the metallurgical zone at the South Site) in the water-stressed region by:

1. 1. initially siphoning from groundwater sources, including from the Limpopo River’s alluvial aquifer, until-
   2. a planned mega-dam, the 1,000Mn3/a “Musina Dam” complex, is built close to the MMSEZ North Site, that will capture up to 60% of the Limpopo’s annual flow (according to the Pre-Feasibility Study conducted) to be stored “off-channel” at the Sand River mouth, from where it will be pumped uphill to the southern site over a distance of 50km, supplemented by-
   3.  a scheme known as the “Mutasshi Corridor” to pump 30Mm3/a from Zimbabwe’s Tokwe-Mukosi and Zhove dams.

See research report commissioned by the Friedrich Ebert Institute authored by Dr Victor Munnik.

The MM-SEZ is located in the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve, which has been inscribed by UNESCO in recognition of its outstanding biodiversity value.

Pollution from the noxious industrial zone and new coal mines that will supply it, will inevitably lead to severe severe and irreversible environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, damage to ecosystems and ecosystem services and destruction of natural capital.

Quite apart from CO2 emissions, coal mining and coal combustion have other highly negative environmental impacts: Sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury emissions, and the aftermath from sludge, slurry and fly ash ponds that contain a variety of toxins, combine to poison the air, soil and water across a vast area beyond the sites of the mines and factories.

Places that play host to extensive coal mining and related heavy industry are among the most polluted on earth.

The impact on water resources of the development of extensive coal mining as well as the industrial zones of the MMSEZ in this water-scarce region will be catastrophic.

The plan to supply the 125Mn m3/a water requirements of the SEZ from the Limpopo River and its tributaries, including the Mzingwane River in Zimbabwe, and from local groundwater sources, threatens the resiliency of the entire Limpopo River basin river system, and all other water users who depend on its water resources.

The loss and contamination of ground and surface water resources in Limpopo’s stressed catchments represents a threat to all other sectors, including farming, but it threatens the very survival of vulnerable rural households and small-scale farmers who depend on groundwater and run-of-river abstractions to meet their needs.

The Limpopo River basin is a transboundary water resource, and the threat this development indisputably poses to the basic human right to water access for downstream water users in Mozambique could translate into serious political risk as well.

The damage that the development of coal mining and coal-fueled heavy industry will inflict on other industries, especially on farming and tourism and the emerging biodiversity economy, as a consequence of pollution and the contamination of air, water and soil; the degradation of the wild character of the landscape and the loss of wildlife and wildlife habitat is near incalculable.

The development of the MMSEZ and and the coal mines essentially comes at the expense of all other sectors and will permanently destroy the carbon sink and biodiversity reservoir and their potential to create jobs, SMME opportunities, and livelihoods to benefit poor rural communities.