We are highly experienced professionals working in these mines and we are not interested in cooking up figures, Konkola Copper Mines Chief Executive Officer Jeyakumar Janakaraj has stated.
Mr. Janakaraj said the strict corporate governance code regulating big mining companies such as KCM makes it practically difficult to under report or even over report copper production figures.
“For us as KCM, this is not an issue. I cannot start cooking up figures because am not an investor in KCM, am just an employee and I get a salary based on my professional work. I have strict ethical considerations to make,” Mr. Janakaraj.
“I can go to jail for under reporting. We don’t engage in any grain of under reporting at KCM. We are a world class mining operation, we are not school boys who need to report to the master everything we do. We are governed by global standards,’ he said.
Mr. Janakaraj said KCM is listed on the London Stock Exchange through its parent company Vendetta adding that the company’s production figures are available for scrutiny for all.
“We don’t hide anything, we are totally transparent,” he said.
He said the disparity in production figures are a result of a lack of close collaboration between the Central Statistical Office, Bank of Zambia, the Zambia Revenue Authority and Ministry of Finance.
“We are hoping through the Chamber of Mines, the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative would greatly help improve the quality of data capturing,” he said.
The KCM CEO was answering questions from Zambian Journalists this morning on the new reporting requirements instituted by the PF government during the official opening of a three day media workshop in Chingola.
On key mine projects, Mr. Janakaraj said KCM has so far invested USD 1 billion in the development of the Konkola Deep Mine Project whose works are expected to be completed this schedule.
“We are on schedule with the KDMP, this is a project that was on the cards for over 30 years and no one had the technology and the belief to develop this asset. We are happy that KDMP is coming on boards and this will extend KCMs mine life,” he said.
Mr. Janakaraj said mining companies are not interested in getting incentives from the government but are more interested in having a stable and predictable mining policy.
“We need predictability in mining policies and not really incentives, he said.
iwe ka JJ, why do u sound so bitter & unprofessional? a good for nothing CEO….Mbazima was the best CEO KCM has ever had…..not ma rubbish aya! its not a secret that KCM cooks figs, ok tell us about how much Gold KCM is producing as a by-product….what predictable policies? this is a dynamic world, our policies will keep changing in order for us to achieve our developmental goals…
Mbazima was never a CEO at KCM. He was heading finance. Soko was the acting CEO till the time of coming in of the strategic equity partner Vedanta.
Yes u are right…I meant Soko…I usually confuse these two guys! thanks for the correction. Sharp!
JJ, you are not being sincere on this one. Why don’t you talk about cobalt? How much do you sell per tonne? How much did you give MMD for its campaigns last year? Are miners wll paid as compared to the profits that KCM reaps? Be frank.
If the budget speech is anything to go by,then clearly our government has not yet put in mechanisms for checks and balances in the mining sector. The issue may not be reporting wrong or correct figures. Thing is how much of those figures benefit the Zambian people in taxes and revenue. 6% is painfully low. These mining companies look at us as an ‘I don’t care nation’that’s why mines change hands overnight without an explanation to anyone and no one will even question why it should be so. I wouldn’t be surprised if at all figures are cooked,there is no serious mechanism put by our government to account for mining. Umusungu temunobe.
Iwe dnt b rude than there is something u doin 4 u to come out like this silly
Ba JJ what about the Slimes @ the refinary which is exported daily by Air in drums, and the Cobalt at the smelter and not forgeting the pyrite at Napundwe are they all declared…i doubt
…to be completed this schedule? Whatever it means?
JJ, how much of those slimes at the Kitwe Nkana Refinery are reported in your Revenue apart from those Losses you offset against the Smelterco Company. Those copper chukes you export from the Nchanga Smelter and you report them as scrap. Who are you cheating? Gold, silver and other small quantities of precious metals from the same Nkana Refinery slimes from those Tanks houses in Nkana IBU, give us the figures for the Revenue obtained so far, Iwe we are not under five!!
What about other precious minerals?
KCM have been screwing zambia for too long, just like Mopani mines. These people are polished crooks who see nothing wrong in reporting dodgy figures to government, especially when that government is full of crooks like the MMD we had for 20 years! I am glad that Chikwanda has sense and duty to Zambia by starting some measures to make them fully accounta and disclose their production.
You Zambians failed to run the mines together with your Grand father Kaunda, Lumwana and Kanshanshi were even closed in the 70 by ZCCM, Please if you are poor blame your father and mother period. KCM guys are using there money to make money, why are you always up in arms with people with capacity and brains to make money?????.
The so-called international prices for copper during the period from 1975 to the end of the UNIP era were less than US$ 1.50 /kg. In the recent past, prices have been above US$ 7.00 / kg. I hope that you know the difference between the two! Please reflect the deeper meaning of the environments before you declare success or failure of management systems. Please!
Do your research properly than express your ignorance before you comment. Check and establish what made us become insolvent than comment on things you have no knowledge over!
If you are just reading books about zambia written by the same former colonialists you are siding with, then you have no clue about Zambia as a whole. And my I appeal is that you leave the founding father and his friends who fought for the good of country and availed you the chance to even learn the english you can now speak and write alone. They sacrificed everything and most of them died in poverty so that you could have a life.
Stupid comments. Wake up you fool.
In fact, most of these guys are professionals at dodgism…..resource policies will always remain upredicatble. It is just the nature of business….gvmt can windfall tax can swing in any time when you reaping more…that is it. equally it is the responsibility of the government to ensure that workers do not suffer in the case the investors abandone the miners when there are not profits…JJ it is the nature of business..HH is coming with a waterfall tax to complete clean up your profits…not just blowing a bit of it with the wind…noo…wait for HH…ingombe ilende for now.
It looks like this man has grown wings all of a sudden! What is making him talk tough like this? My guess is as good as yours. But this seems to show like the man is so sure that KCM is now untouchable by the government that promised to be tough on investors. In Chewa we say that” Wakhungu akati ndikutema ndikokuti waponda pa mwala”! Simply put when a blind man says I will stone you, it means he is stepping on a stone! So which stone is this JJ stepping on? It is probable that the highest office in the land inlcuding the purppet master Fred M’membe have been compromised by KCM! Just my thoughts!
Sorry mate, in bemba we say “amasetting nga yafula, ndaponona.” This indian has no clue what zambians can do ngabafulwa, especially ba shi mine. He’s playing with fire. An indian undermining and thinking we are so backwards and illiterate? You have been forgiven this time.
Very true JJ, KCM is the most proffesionaly run mine in Zambia. Very transparent and sincere. The only problem is that Zambians are generally inclined to treat other races with suspicion, if it was muzungu mine they wouldn’t even comment. But I can tell you that I have worked for KCM and other mines and I salute JJ and company for their proffessional conduct in running the mines. Those of you making bad comments have not even worked at KCM and other mines to compare!! Well done JJ!!
you must be JJ’s chola boy…right?…you been offered a flat at the “indian only” residence opposite nchanga hospital right?….schopet
Ba guy you should be serious when discussing serious issues. I guess you have never worked for KCM, if you have it was in HR. I worked in the smelter for over 3 years and I saw what most bloggers are saying here. We saw copper anodes being sent to India as ‘Raw materials’. We also had cobalt alloy being sold in China, alot of it. Which figures was he declaring? How about the slimes at the refinery? Because the blend KCM runs in the smelter has traces of gold, silver, uranium, etc etc. Let JJ answer these questions, dont defend him. Walilyamo??
Agree fully with Kweku.
You must have worked in a very secluded section of KCM or you were a chola boy. Some us worked KCM at vesting and in Anglo and saw better days than this nonsense!
KCM is also the only Mining house with tangible Social responsibility programs. People, appreciate what privatisation is all about before you condemn. Check the bill boards in your towns to see how much tax the mines pay. It’s your government you should be asking where the tax they collect goes, compare the car you drive the the pajeros, fortuner, Jeeps that have GRZ lables especially if you’re in Lusaka.
@Yeah, its chaps like you who continiously make Africa stagnant. If you saw all those things, why didn’t you report them? You could have collected evidence to back up your allegations, its called ” whistle blowing” and its supported in the UN charter! So you are telling us now, where is the evidence? And you are talking about it on the blog, will it help now? were you scared of losing your job? If so, please then don’t say anything!!! Code of Ethics will guide one to expose any wrong doing on the expense of loss of employment! Code of Ethics is the foundation of whistle blowing! Compare it to fighting for freedom! When you people see that something is wrong why not take it to the relevant authority, if they don’t act, and you have evidence, take it to the media, period.
Hey Pig face, where you born of an indian man and a zambian woman? How can you so blindly pretend when you know they were and are still ripping us of. Atleast, the cobra is beginning to fight back and trust me, you do not mess with mwana ngoshe ulupola when he gets angry. I mean, where were you or were are you to say this gabbage?
It is governments responsibility to accurately monitor the mines production, the type of products and revenues obtained.
It is folly for us as country to depend on the mines, especially those run by Chinese economic bandits to dutifully report all the stats correctly! Just check next door in Tanzania where they have set up a fully manned government agency complete with labs and people stationed at the plants to physically monitor their mines (Tanzania Minerals Audit Agency) Here in Zambia, all we have is just a couple of guys sitting at the ministry of mines waiting for the mines to send them production reports! shocking, absolutely shocking!
Monitor them closely. These guys’ priority one interest is to get as much profit as they possibly can. They will do anything including over valuating capital expenditure, inflated figures on servises, and other costs, so that within those inflated cost lie the extra profit they dubously get. They will use all tacts available for deceit to get away with it. So whwn monitoring them don’t look at their face value. Look ar them carefully. They are alsi very good at hidding under small prints. Use the best technique to detect them. There so many tricks they use, just be firm and employ best detection methods available to tract what they are doing. 48 years, so many hole and curves of extracted minerals but little iis left for the country! We have lost a lot from the mines.
PF is so bitter than any zambian for failing to fulfil their fake promises.Dont mind their weired pronouncements-its just frustration-there is no tangible output from this useless PF government ever since it assumed power hence the wabbling on anything anyhow–look at the minimum wage nonsense../ So Mr CEO JJ, dont bother yrself on these noisy makers.
Is joy Sata related to the president?
How did Mmembee get that contract of transporting copper?
Daughter!!
KCM CEO is a joker most scandals of understating or overstating figures have been done by BIG CORPORATIONS which are listed on STOCK EXCHANGES and the list is there for every one to see. Its a matter of time when the truth will come out one day.
Poor choice of words by the CEO. Instead of ceasing the moment to put things straight once and for all, he comes across as cocky, antagonistic and creates more unnecessary waves. Where is good PR and diplomacy in KCM? Somebody once said “Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions”. Or maybe could it be that the question from the journalist was too close to the bone for comfort?
Glencore,a far much bigger firm than KCM is about to buy another giant,Xstrata for $32billion dollars.Big as Glencore is,it has been cited as one of the companies that has been found wanting in terms of it’s mining social responsibility.Vale,the second biggest mining firm has also has bad issues regarding mining corporate social resposibility.We are not school boys also,a lot of CEOs can use the term ‘profesionalism’ as a conduit or speck for corporate crime.The question is,why is JJ the CEO,don’t we have Zambians to run these mines.Competent Zambians are bigger CEOs in other countries.JJ can,t compare to Norman Mbazima or Jordan Soko,etc
Exactly my question. And I have pointed out a few of those that I worked with/under; Zambians who where educated longer and by far better than these injuns we call investors. How can an indian company invest in a little country like zambia when of the 1 billion indians in their country, 90% of them eat less than what a grandparent in kasama or monce eats in a day. We are basically giving them the weapons to use against us. Indian when tired stinks like poop and wont work as much as us africans. The fact and trutht is that they don’t have our interest. All they are doing is siphony our resources and by God, if we are fighting now, imagine what we will do after they have taken everything from us, that which belong to us as a right and a gift from God
Scottishman..you have said a lot of Rubbish. If you make an investiment, you make sure you have someone you trust to run it. The Zambians you have mentioned failed lamentably because they had no sence of ownership. JJ is very proffessional and very qualified. And whats wrong with Vedanta expanding?? Use your head!
Are you related to JJ or a product of poverty?
Predictability ba ukwa i hope namumfwa,
I don’t like anything about Indian and Indians.. Nothing at all. Even sleeping with one of their untouchables wasn’t good at all.
KCM sponsoring FAZ, is that a way of covering up crooked figures?
Big Muzo No7 you are right. I have reliable information that KCM evade tax by classifying some of the copper as scrap and semi finished because of small things like nodules on the surface of cathode copper. A new system is required like where the tax should be based on the exported quantity and contained metal less final treatment costs.
Check how Botswana guards its diamonds. You should learn something from them. Tanzania has been sited above, it has an agency for monitoring and control of loop holes. Why can’t Zambia have such a deliberate agency, specifically to monitor all mines from production to sales. Why not?
Mr janakarawhatever you are very arrogant. Its precisely because you are highly experienced professionals that you are able to cook up figures. Schoolboys cant.
the CEO is not telling the Zambians the truth about KCM,these guys are not worth calling them investors
KCM is holding a training workshop for 3 days to talk about what? It is sentization of media personnel about operations, achievements and challenges, surely can this take 3 days? Or are they simply trying to replciate the workshops that used to be held by BOZ without even understanding why the central bank used to spend so much time with scribes. Corporate Social Responsility is not just about sponsoring. How many residents of Chingola benefit from soccer? CSR is about responding to the needs of the host community. JJ shoud also desist from follwing the head of state around, he wants to get cosy with the President instead of conducting business. How can one call himself professional with such behaviour?
Bunch of scatter brains you guys are with all those baseless comments!!! word of advice,dont comment on issues you have no data on. Stick to watching mampi and EPL. The CEO is speaking facts,if you dont like it go jump in the lake.
I think this man cooks the figures going by the nonsense he is spiting, and now he is worried that he will cook no more. Please Zambians let us monitor these infesters seriously.
Peace and Prosperity to Mother Zambia.
The bitter truth is that Zambian failed to Run the mines which were Privatized and ZambianISED by Kenneth Kaunda.
If you want get rid of all these foreign Manager and Inverters and see how many non productive holes you will remain with.
I repeat if you are poor BLAME YOU FATHER AND MOTHER
KDPM has a life span?. Iwe nsamya, JJ who are you kidding! We all new KDMP had a life span of over 500 years and that’s why it was named that because most of the copper is beneath the water table. That’s why Dr Sixtus Mulenga as a Zambian scientist were brought in with Bill Mwanza and others. KCM has been taken over basically by a company that stands to extract over 500 years of copper as long as they have the mineral rights. Who can go to India or let alone the USA and do the same?
Anytime you find copper ore bodies, that simply means you will find gold, diamonds and other minerals/gems. People should be asking Charles Milupi, Emmanuel Mutati, Dr Sixtus Mulenga, Dr Jawete Masinja, Dr Beene, Wilbur Simuusa as engineers about the size and value of minerals we have. Kantanshi mine project was a part of the pilot project and there where mining and mechanical engineers in Solwezi who were studying the depth and length of the ore board until Chiluba was voted and stopped everything. On the academic level about mining, they should ask Professor Muyunda Mwanalushi about the then ZCCM industry as a whole, Dr Nkanza Graham and many more. These indians have taken over on a spoon and that’s an insult to zambians, especially a man of Mwanalushi’s stature and other Zambians.