The people of Zvishavane remember the almost intoxicating sense of prosperity when Murowa Diamonds began operating at scale. Jobs were there, not just for highly qualified technicians from Harare but at all levels. And even if one couldn’t get a direct job, the up and downstream provided more opportunity.

Engaging sub-contractors for atering, landscaping, transport, services, security were just a few of the ways that the giant energised. The money from the workers meant more business for the retailers in town, small and large. Builders found work every week of the month instead of every third. Supermarkets stocked more than basics. And bars buzzed with another class, distinct from the artisanal miners.

The impact went beyond the hundreds of families whose lifestyles were upgraded through direct and indirect employment. CSI meant boreholes in dry areas, schools upgraded and many other community initiatives that made a real difference.

The crumble

But in the way that fading begins quietly, before anyone calls it decline, something shifted.

Workers started talking about contracts altered without negotiation. A halt to the bus service that took out of town staffers home to their families at the end of a gruelling shift.  Salaries that no longer stretched. Medical aid that disappeared like a shadow at dusk.

The controversial employment addendum, introduced with pressure rather than dialogue, became the hinge upon which many workers’ lives bent downward. Those who once dreamt of building homes accepted instead a single new room. Parents postponed school fees until harvest. Meat was reserved for Saturdays. It was not an explosion — it was erosion.

Zim Now documented the tremors. The tone in those interviews was not anger. It was disbelief that a once glittering diamond could turn into dust just like that. A man who once operated heavy machinery told us he felt “shrunk,” like the value extracted from the mine had been extracted from him too. A cleaner said she signed the addendum not because she agreed, but because she feared losing the only job feeding her grandchildren. She said, “I didn’t sign for better. I signed to survive.”

We reported when power was switched off over a huge debt and Murowa’s assets were attached. Equipment lined up for auction. Office equipment tagged for sale. People in Zvishavane watched as the symbols of power became salvageable property, and something inside the community shifted. The mine that once lifted the town could now barely carry itself.

A legal directive that spells little hope

Now, with the Supreme Court declaring the addendum unlawful and unenforceable, a legal truth finally echoes what workers have lived: Murowa had no right to downgrade conditions without consent. The ruling has placed the company at a defining crossroads. It must restore the grades it diluted. It must undo wage erosion. It must repair the damage in real terms not in statements, but on payslips.

That judgment, however, is the surface of a deeper wound. Compliance is measurable in numbers. Restoration is measured in lives. But it’s one thing to win a court ruling. A totally different game to enforce it when the company is moribund.

One former employee said she once paid school fees on time for her two children without any headaches. Today, she pays them in instalments and needs side hustles to survive. She laughed when asked if the ruling offered hope. “Hope is not legal,” she said. “Hope is money in my account to pay food and fees and medicine.”

Zvishavane itself has worn the decline like a slow-tightening belt. Bars once filled with end-of-month cheer now fill only at half capacity. Hardware shops stand quieter. A certain brightness, the kind that comes from disposable income, has dulled.

Workers blame management for failing them and mark the sudden death of a director in a plane crash as the beginning of the end.

“This management in clueless. They killed a thriving enterprise,” are the words spoken by all workers interviewed.

But decline rarely happens in a vacuum. Global diamond prices have wobbled. Synthetic stones have flooded markets once dominated by natural extraction. Operations worldwide have tightened or shuttered.

Analysts note that Murowa may have been squeezed by a shifting global economy. But industry winds alone do not account for unilateral grade changes, dwindling benefits, and a labour force that kept sounding the alarm while decision-makers pressed ahead.

Some failures are storms. Others are choices.

Zvishavane waits

The ruling forces a reckoning, but not a resurrection. A contract restored does not immediately restore the confidence of a worker who needs to find money now to ensure her children return to school next month when the 2026 education calendar opens.

Murowa may shine again. Mines have recovered before. Communities have risen from collapse. And perhaps, if the mine chooses restoration over resistance, that glow may one day return. And once again, the glitter of diamond will sparkle in the town.