Friday, March 29, 2024

KCM was sold for a song to Vedanta but we are not going to nationalize it-Yaluma

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PATRIOTIC Front Malole Member of Parliament Christopher Yaluma explains details of the new rebased currencies to his electorates in Finshe ward in Mungwi district
Mines, Energy and Water Development Minister Christopher Yaluma

Mines and Minerals Minister Christopher Yaluma has revealed that Government has no plans to nationalize Konkola Copper Mines.
Mr Yaluma told a packed news conference in Lusaka Tuesday afternoon that Government will not go back on its policy to privatize the mines.

“We made the decision as a Government to put the mines in private hands and we have received some benefits on one hand and yes we have been ripped off on the other but we are not going to go back on our policy decision to private the mines,” Mr Yaluma said.

Mr Yaluma also admitted that the US$ 25 million that Vedanta Resources Plc paid for KCM was insufficient.

“It is true that they bought the mine for a song. We didn’t do our homework as a nation then and our audit of KCM operations has revealed that KCM did not bring in any fresh investment as promised, they just started reinvesting the same funds generated from sales proceeds against the original agreement,” Mr Yaluma said.

He also revealed that the audit conducted by a technical audit committee chaired by Dr Sixtus Mulenga showed that KCM was heavily in debt and faced threats of insolvency as at 30th September 2013.

“Following the announcement by KCM to retrench 1,529 employees, Government appointed a technical audit committee to audit the operations at KCM and recommend the course of action to be taken to preserve jobs. Contrary to the assertion by KCM that the planned mechanization of mining methods, the audit established that there was no plan linking the two. The problem was the mismanagement of the business,” he said.

He added, “The mismanagement was evidenced by threat to insolvency. As at 30th September 2013, KCM’s total liabilities of US$ 1.567 billion exceed the current assets by US$ 123 million. Consequently, KCM was unable to meet its obligations as they fall due.”

Mr Yaluma also blamed the company’s operational problems to the high turnover of Chief Executive Officers and high exodus of skilled Zambian professionals.

‘The main problem is that when Vedanta took over the mine, it did not have any business plan or a mining plan for the company.”
The Mines Minister disclosed that Vedanta Resources has up to now not complied with its commitment to inject US$ 397 million into KCM as foreign direct investment.

“Following the submission of the audit report, My Ministry engaged Vedanta shareholders and KCM’s top management to find means an ways of steering the company out of the desperate situation. Through this dialogue, a business plan to improve operations at KCM was developed and agreed upon by both parties,” he said.

“The business improvement plan targets to incrementally ramp up production from 132,318 tons of finished copper in 2013 to 178,994 tons by 2017. To achieve this, the company committed to inject US$ 250 million into production operations and US$ 30 million into smelter operations to improve flow of concentrates.”

On the video showing Vedanta Chairman Anil Agarwal mocking Zambia about the sale price, Mr Yaluma said Government will institute investigations into the matter using appropriate channels.

“Some of the issues that the Vedanta Chairman alluded to in the recent media reports especially touching on the company’s revenue and its profitability will require investigation by the Government. We as Government shall ensure that at the end of the day, the people of Zambia get a fair share of the returns from the mineral wealth,” Mr Yaluma said.

47 COMMENTS

  1. This is what is called foolishness. Rushing to sell the national asset for a song without thinking. You politicians you must learn to listen to the people, don’t be to big headed for nothing. Shame on you.

  2. They pay $25 million they never paid $397 million, thats breach of contract. Using deception to reinvest only after production from $25 million, when are they going to pay or bring $397million. This is a cracker of conman style, cheating and tricking the whole country, and sustained stance for so long. Just what must we do to address breach of contract. $397 million must be brought in, that is part of the $500million he makes annually. Get them boys, you have been sleeping when the loot under your nose is going on. These are conmen.

    • When you have leaders whose brains have a Pavlovian response when faced with a lighter skinned human being, Yaluma, indeed typifies the inferiority complex – he unashamedly lists all things they have been in default, YET ADAMANTLY says, NO WE WON’T DO ANYTHING! When people say Chimbwi No Plan, or Ba kapoli bask in the glory of smearing themselves with their own faeces, Yaluma fits squarely into that description!!

    • You hit it right. The most painful thing is not that the guy got this whole country for $25m but that those entrusted with the duty to oversee our country’s resources and business are still sleeping as they were sleeping during the sale. Unbelievable that after so many days of these embarrassing revelations Yaluma has still no idea how much the mines make. This is shocking, disgusting and infuriating. What a clueless regime! slow nincompoops.

    • Seriously no action .The Zambian people can still take class action lawsuit and find a competent corporate lawyer if they feel they are not being represented well.

    • The Indian business men you find in Zambia are corrupt. Elsewhere in the world you may find an Indian investor with integrity but not in Zambia or Africa at large. Only the lowest calibre of investors are found in Zambia. Standards of economic investment need to improve in Zambia. Look at what happened with banks(indo zam, finance,etc) that had Indian business men at the helm. Many brilliant Zambians who built strong business were financially ruined because of those so called Indian business investors. Meanwhile the culprits responsible for liquidated banks, escaped to India with millions of dollars stolen from honest Zambian business men.Integrity and corruption do not mix. It is a fact Argwal using child labour for business in India.These investors need to expunged.

    • What I cannot fathom is how one can say this is worth $400m but give me $25m and re-invest the rest in what you are buying. Simple logic tells me it means that it is the seller who is in fact re-investing because it is what should in his pocket that is actually being invested. The other thing I cannot fathom is how us the Zambian stand a receive this message from a fellow Zambian, defending the transaction publicly? Unless there is some detail I am missing this shows how dull we are, period! Let’s wake up guys. Not only should we be lashing out at the buyer but also all who were involved in this bogus way of thinking, all the advisers and people who endorsed this should be answerable and punished accordingly

  3. Just something tells you inside as a Zambian that these a.s.s. holes Have no Idea… Why not shed some light on the bragging the C.E. O was making in Hindu of $500 million … which has reached the common man not this techno stuff…

    What a joke pa Zed…

    • Shed more light? He doesn’t know how true that is. That is why he said “Government will institute investigations into the matter using appropriate channels”. It’d be foolish to try and prosecute without real findings.

  4. While the KCM boss freely and openly told the world about the good profits the company makes, the PF Govt continues to insist on Challenges which KCM faces, thereby effectively discrediting the public revelations of KCM boss. The KCM boss said “I make huge Profits”. The PF Govt says, “KCM has problems”. And the way I know PF Govt, the story is concluded and buried by the promise that Govt will investigate. Now we know a lot about PF promises!

  5. Modern contracts have conditions attached to them which in case of breach of contract penalties, punishment or sanctions are invoked. Advanced thinking has even introduced small prints in which severe, obligation or strict instructions are embedded that come to compel contractual obligation invoked. Did we ever have such small prints in this contract? We are surely looking a joke in the face of the world and more so in the face of these investors. Blood conmen! Come on zambian legal experts, whats there in your heads about this national saga. The nation makes so much from copper and yet we don’t see it! We end up acquiring loan after loan when we have what it takes to thrive as a nation, that elephant in the room, copper. Ewe are only 13 or 14 million people who must all by now well…

    • Boi these guys don’t care about their country. All they care about is themselves, they are the same type of people that sold their fellow Africans as slaves to the British 300+ years ago. The fine print is there but no one cares enough to take action or they have orders from the top not to do anything because someone has already been paid off.

  6. Very matured speech by minister , this is the correct approach, hope this will bring end to all controversies and press allows KCM team to work together in ensuring they turnaround the company with kind support of ministry , way to go !!!

    • Which way to go? Wee nkoko wee! You and Yaluma are both a let down to the Zambian people if you can’t read the mood, then you are truly a fool. Capital investment injection is part of contractual obligation in acquisitions. This minister should be telling us what steps will be taken to make KCM comply to its breach of contractual obligations of US$397 million in capital investment.
      Secondly, all Net Operating Income from now on to be taxed at 35%, plus re-introduce windfall tax and penalties to be charged with interest for all lost taxes from KCM through breach of contract and fraudulent accounting! I am really fuming over the thieving of our wealth by these ghullies!

  7. Everything we do appears to be half-a.r.sed and often under pressure. It is as if the entire economy is living on less than a dollar a day right up to the top! As Floyd rightly puts it, isn’t there a mechanism first of all to investigate the veracity of the Anal guy’s rants, but second and most important, what MUST be done in the face of the breach? We understand the song story; we were in a beggars position so we sold at about 6% of what we expected to but now – COME ON – we really must earn our keep now as a government and really do the right thing JUST FOR ONCE if at all.

  8. it seems people just what to condemn even things which are straight forward. This is how markets behave and everyone knows that. For instance a friend of mine bought a property from former SPCMU in Choma in 1996 at 4 million kwacha. even if it was what economics will call a forced sell because the said company had been placed under receivership, it was still a lot of money at the time. Today over 15 years later Choma is now a provincial capital and the same property is being valued at over K100 million.Now for KCM Who wound have predicted that 10 years they wound be making a thousand fold of profits? The solution to such a situation the so called windfall tax and Levy was weary of such a fact that is why he propergated for its introduction.

    • I agree with you for the large part; the market price at the time was K4m and you paid in full. But what I do not understand is valuing a property at $400m and only getting $25m because the mine needs recapitalisation. Look this was akin to pay me $400m and, here have $375m back so you can put I into Konkola deep. Isn’t that unusual? I smell a rat here!

  9. LT this Yaluma story is old news. What makes you think that he deserves to feature twice on the same day with the same story on the same page?! Levy must be spinning in his grave.

  10. #7 the Psychiatrist … the point you and many more are missing is that there was deception in the original purchase ….. which the current owner is bragging about on tape…
    Typical Zambian we are at fault…

    My point is the actual value was not tabled… we all know what cost 10 years ago even here in New York is not the same. Today…
    please look for better excuses

  11. Good way to go. Let US HOPE kcm can go this way too so that the exchange rate may improve.

  12. This all shows how important it is for zambians to reflect on their voting behaviour during elections. Voting on basis of own excitements or tribal alliance forms a base to future irrelevant problems. The victims are poor zambians. The sums of money involved and which is now in the few-rich private hands can be used to buy and distribute fertilizer to peasants and to help the disables and orphans. In fact zambia is rich enough to start working on national social security schemes which would be beneficiary to all zambians.

    Dr. B. Mwansa kapika
    Interim President
    Zambia Christian Democratic Union

  13. We screwed ourselves, or rather the govt screwed the people. So we all want to cry? Yes, cry but after you cry get your asses up and move on!

  14. This is one of the many USELESS MINISTERS the President made reference to and deserves to be shown the door out to his village if the President for once can be serious.

    How can he ignore practical advice from the experts and talk nonsense? How long have we been hearing a song of Government will do everything possible,

    Government is even supposed to do the impossible for the people. The monkey has siphoned money out and you are talking crap? For how long have you in Government been making statements concerning the dishonesty dealings at KCM? Ukupalwa fye ku bupuba bweka bweka.

    • The president himself is utterly useless. ..what has said so far part from ghost writers updating. …we are wasting alot of taxpayer’s money paying an empty suit every month.

  15. So this is it, the action we were waiting for seriously no no no!. ok plan B i think its time for KOPALA swaga boys G unit to do the justice atleast twabweshako shimo naifwe tulelya kaili mwalya sana ba politician and then next step ba UPND we ll try you in 2016 on the condition that jerabos will be operating freely chapwa equal share of the national cake. make sure HH ukese tukalande waumfwa kopala efintu

  16. The issue NOW is not the sale price but FAILURE by govt to collect tax. Tax collection and distribution of wealth is the principal reason why govts are elected!

  17. Why are we cursed with such empty tins. ..ripped off…this is taxpayer’s funds we are losing here. This is our money instead on issuing bonds we could use this money.
    You wonder who these people represent?

    • Bane you ought to ashamed for your tantrums against our president and leadership. Imagine if PF did not come into power where would we have been as a country and people! You even have the audacity to insult the President. You are the one who is cursed because the President has done more than enough humanly speaking. Now He is mopping up the mess such like you, left behind and you still load it on him. Bane amano tamwakwata.

  18. What’s LAZ got to say about this. Here comes an opportunity for them to properly serve the nation by interpreting some of the laws that govern corporate business. Let them sue KCM after these investigations instead wasting time fighting the Thief Justice.

  19. The more you listen to the garbage being spewed by these govt officials the more you are convinced how completely clueless they are. First Yaluma says a technical audit committee sent Dr Sixtus to review KCM’s accounts and discovered the company was insolvent as at 30 September 2013. But seven months down the line KCM boss is heard bragging in his native Hindi showing off to his tribesmates in India what a clever chap he is. So one of the two guys, Sixtus and Anawgarl, must be more stup!d than the other. Either Sixtus found an insolvent company or Anawgarl lives in a fools paradise of self deception. Would you kindly please hire a reputable and ethical audit firm to conduct a comprehensive review of KCM’s books? It seems like Sixtus audit skills fall far short, either that or he…

    • …..was a bought man of Anawgarl and did some creative accounting on KCM. Lets get to the bottom of this.

  20. PF cant do anything now ,but they will go at night during elections period to ask for help. People don’t cheated .

  21. “Following the announcement by KCM to retrench 1,529 employees, Government appointed a technical audit committee to audit the operations at KCM and recommend the course of action to be taken to preserve jobs.” This is the same mistake the Mwanawasa administration made, trying to preserve jobs so that the ruling govt doesn’t lose popularity amongst the mine workers yet KCM is making $500million annually as stated by its own Chairman. The govt audit committee found that KCM was ”on the brink of collapse” this is false, the books are always cooked up so that to an outsider the company looks like it’s making losses” that reduces their tax liability and they get more concessions from govt and in the end when they’ve made enough money they’ll just pack and go without paying…

  22. Zambians are plain dum. At least us foreign investors can continue making our millions for our future generations and we promise we shall leave when all the copper, emerald, diamond and gold is depleted. Rest in peace poor zambians coz you dont know what you are missing.

  23. ” We didn’t do our homework as a nation then ”

    Or in the immortal words of skeezy pizza chain operator and Republican party presidential hopeful Herman Cain, ‘Blame yourself’ (when I cheat you). Every conman just loves it when their victims blame themselves and don’t go to the police to report their crime.

    No. ‘The Nation’ was most definitely not at the negotiating table, and cannot now be blamed for the corruption of the MMD ministers who were in charge at the time of the scrapping of the Windfall Tax.

    Maybe the minister now wants to blame the nation for voting for the MMD?

    Time to step down. The Finance Minister too. I remember his predecessor Situmbeko Musokotwane actually removed the Windfall Tax.

  24. ” ‘The main problem is that when Vedanta took over the mine, it did not have any business plan or a mining plan for the company.” ”

    And yet, that didn’t matter.

    I mean, at what job do you lose $5.5 billion and keep your job?

    ” We as Government shall ensure that at the end of the day, the people of Zambia get a fair share of the returns from the mineral wealth,” Mr Yaluma said. ”

    It will be a happy day, when I never hear the phrase “a fair share” again. Can’t play cricket at a Jaialai game. Anil Agarwal was not looking for ‘a fair share of KCM’, or ‘a win-win deal’.

    Again, lack of aggression in defending national resources should be a reason for immediate dismissal.

  25. I first want to disagree with the PF strategy to deliberately wanting to make the country own treacherous Mwanawasa purported sale of the KCM. I do not agree with the statement and I quote” we did not do our homework as a country” Mr. Minister, when, how and what evidence do you have to say that the country as a whole was involved or consulted over this KCM sale by Mwanawasa? The treacherous behavior of Mwanawasa, Kasonde and Kaunda Lemba Lemba was their modes operandi. The three of them did exactly the same thing at the Ministry of Energy, to Zambia National Oil Company’s assets and oil business in Zambia when they brought in Trans Sahara Africa (TST), a company run and operated by mercenaries, Executive Outcomes, who were at the center of the civil war in Sierra Leone.

  26. The acts of these three characters, Mwanawasa, Kasonde and Kaunda Lemba Lemba in KCM were deliberate, and were done against professional advice. They was certainly bigger evil motives behind all these actions if one takes into account the state of the country after the disputed election of Mwanawasa, which election most believe was won by the late Anderson Mazoka – may his soul rest in peace.

    Mr. Minister, we know that it has been PF’s policy to shield and hide Mwanawasa’s corruption. These double standards are not good for the country. PF is prosecuting RB and Dora for offences which I can say are petty when you compare them to the magnitude of the crimes that Mwanawasa, Kasonde and Kaunda Lemba Lemba committed against Zambia.

  27. Why has Sata been hiding these crimes, is it to protect his tribes man Kasonde and the future consequences it is going to have on the Bemba from Northern province like that has had so far on the people from Luapula. You think those of us from Luapula has been happy to have been tagged as thieves all this time based on false accusations of the real thieves themselves Mwanawasa, a Lenje from Bantu Botatwe, Kasonde a Bemba and Kaunda Lemba Lemba from Malawi. Please take these cases to court so that your Bemba tribesmen can know how it feels to be called thieves.

  28. Your DPP Mutembo Nchito prosecuted Chiluba for 9 years and failed to get a conviction. He is now prosecuting RB and Dora. If you as PF treat all Zambian tribes as equal, prosecute all those involved in the purported Sale of KCM. You are assured that it will not take 9 years like it took to fail to convict Chiluba later on 2 years it has taken to prosecute RB so far. These, your thieves in KCM will be convicted of a treasonable charge on the first day in a court room. These cases will not go away; they will be tried at some time in future

  29. Mwanawasa’s former adviser Jack Kalala said at the press conference that Stanchart UK and some experts were involved in the KCM sale. Taking into account what you Mr. Minister has said that there was no fresh investment that was brought in by Vedanta. It is clear that Stanchart UK was in the deal certainly not as a financer but as advisers to Mwanawasa on this purported KCM sale. Are you two, Jack Kalala and you, Mr. Minister telling us that the British government in this case through Stanchart advised Mwanawasa to sell KCM for US$ 25 million? Things here don’t add up, Mwanawasa and others were involved in yet another treasonable act of compromising the Zambia security system when they created the so called Task Force on corruption on the advice and funding from the British government.

  30. We need all the reports of the so called experts including Stanchart UK and the role of the British government in all these treacherous acts of Mwanawasa and group to recolonize Zambia economically.

  31. vedanta chairman is very corrupt.He dangled a carrot to mwanawasa and behold the mine was sold for a song.Under R B no windfall tax.No action is being taken now.What’s a million Dollars or pounds to Anil Agarwal.He can afford to corrupt them all.That’s why he brags.That chap needs to be jailed.

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