Three young boys, aged 11, 12, and 14, suffered severe burns on Friday after falling into a dumpsite containing hot waste material disposed of by cement maker, Pretoria Portland Cement (PPC) at its Colleen Bawn plant.
The boys were taken to Mater Dei hospital in Bulawayo and are currently receiving treatment for their injuries.
PPC Head of Operations and Projects, Mavellas Sibanda told CITE that the company had sent its industrial safety and occupational health personnel to assist the injured boys and their families. Said Sibanda:
<blockquote>
PPC Zimbabwe Limited (‘the company’ or ‘PPC Zimbabwe’) regrets to advise of the injury of three non-employees at Colleen Bawn (“the injured persons”).
The incident occurred around 1700hrs on Friday, January 13, 2023, he said at an industrial dumpsite on the Western side of the Colleen Bawn Plant, which the company operates.
Two of the injured persons, accidentally jumped into the dumpsite thereby sustaining burns from some of the materials in the dumpsite which were still hot.
The third injured person sustained burns on the arms whilst trying to assist the other two injured persons.
… The company has assisted with all medical support required.
</blockquote>
Sibanda said according to the report from the doctors attending them, the boys were in stable condition. | <a href="https://cite.org.zw/three-boys-severely-burnt-after-stepping-on-hot-ash/">CITE</a>

Pindula News

Three Boys Severely Burnt Near Cement Plant

Cement manufacturer Pretoria Portland Cement (PPC) Zimbabwe has said the cement manufacturing sector has enough production capacity to meet the demands of the country.
Speaking while briefing the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Industry and Commerce this Wednesday which was visiting their offices in Bulawayo, PPC Zimbabwe Managing Director Kelibone Masiyane said:
<blockquote>
As the cement manufacturing industry, we do have enough capacity to meet the demands of the country.
We however some time last year had an unfortunate incident where Lafarge cement had an accident that led to the closure of the plant while we were also having major maintenance works.
Hence we had two major players down leading to a shortage. However, as the cement industry, we have the capacity.
</blockquote>
The visit by the committee was part of its fact-finding visits to cement manufacturing industries.
The chairperson of the committee, Joshua Sacco (ZANU PF), explained the reasons for the fact-finding visit. He said:
<blockquote>
The main reason for our visit is to look at the capacity as in do we as a country have the capacity to produce cement as you know there is a lot of construction being done around the country.
There is a perception that we do not have enough cement in the country so as a committee we have been looking at this to say do we have enough capacity to produce as Zimbabwe. We are looking at pricing as well as quality issues.
We have come across a number of issues that we feel the government should address and come on board.
We are very happy to report that Lafarge they have received support from the government, and they have installed a vertical mill.
PPC has also received support from the government in establishing a milling plant in Harare. So we see that there is close interaction between government and business.
However, there is a need to look into revamping the National Railways of Zimbabwe to reduce the cost of logistics.
Issues of energy supply are some of the issues we came across. Hence we will engage the relevant authorities
</blockquote>
| <a href="https://www.sundaynews.co.zw/cement-producers-assures-nation-of-available-stock/">The Sunday News</a>

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