Over 500 illegal miners have broken into the perimeter wire fence and forced their way into the mining area at Kasenseli gold mine in Mwinilunga district looting undisclosed quantities of alluvial Gold.
The illegal miners are reported to have come from a camp in the nearby bush called Kabanda B nicknamed after Kabanda Township in Mwinilunga district.
District commissioner Arnot Mapulanga confirmed the development to ZANIS in Mwinilunga today after he visited the area.
Mr Mapulanga observed that the illegal miners found it easy to gain entry into the mine area by simply unscrewing the joints in the wire fence.
He called on the contractor erecting the fence to reconsider the design by welding the joints as opposed to using bolts and nuts and also advised the contractor to immediately repair the fence to avoid a reoccurrence.
The district commissioner warned that government will not sit idle and allow criminality to continue at the Gold mine adding that stern action will be taken against anyone found wanting.
He said the gold at Kasenseli is a national resource from which social amenities such as roads, hospitals and schools can be built to benefit majority citizens as opposed to a few selfish individuals.
Meanwhile, Panorama security Manager Operations, William Mwale called for reinforcement of man power and crowd dispersing tools such as tear smoke and dog handlers from state police.
He said the illegal miners seem to be aware that police are not allowed to shoot at them hence they take advantage of this and fearlessly charge towards them.
When contacted for details of the incident, Northwestern province Commissioner of Police Elias Chushi promised to issue a statement later.
Two weeks ago, illegal miners attempted to dismantle the wire fence to try and gain access to the mine site.
The term illegal miners is displaced in as far as this situation is concerned. The purported illegal miners are locals of the village that are seeking survival in this harsh economic condition we are in.
1. You’ve blocked them completely from having any little of the natural resource in the pretext that jobs and development will be taken to them, which of course is not the case as the gold being mined keeps going out of the place so poor and in absolute poverty.
If you where to come to this mwinilunga district you would wonder if it is a place where millions worth of gold is coming from, the roads are so pathetic you can’t even call it a road and the youths have zero empowerment.
What you should be doing to help these people is not castigate them by calling them names but help them get their plea heard by the relevant authority. Let the people be empowered so that they won’t need to go and sleep in mosquito infested bushes seeking survival.
When will Edgar hear the calls of firing and arresting that PF minister of Jerabos?
We need a firing squad for such criminals. I don’t tolerate violence but where we have a few greedy individuals trying to destabilise what should be benefiting us all, I see no problem with 2 bullets in the head.
These can only be PF cadres…
That’s their God given Gold. Let the people of Mwinilunga benefit from their gold
@Remmy Mukako: Any where in the world the state is charged with the responsibility of managing and distruting the national wealth. When you hear people say “it is their gold let them benifit from their gold”Then you begin to realise how low calibre citizens can be a danger to themselves. The person saying this sat in a classroom that he did not build, goes to a clinic he did not build and gets the medicine he does not manufacture. and perharps stays in an electrified house. And still does not understand that resuorces from somewhere where used to build schools, roads, power generation etc. We need better civilised citizens to develop our great nation. If you were from DRC we would forgive you for thinking like that.
Tarino why can it only be pf and not upnd? Ati I am not partisan but we all know that you are from a certain tribe and support upnd. Zambians are not f00ls. 2021 they will show you again that this nation is bigger than your tribe and tribal grouping in upnd. How many time have zambians rejected you
Zambia!!! I can only laugh, mwe!! We have a huge debt in billions of dollars but we are sitting on money. Have you seen the urgency that has been put into getting covid-19 vaccine approved? That’s how we should act on gold…
@Kelvin, what kind of reasoning is that? Where did the resources to build that school, clinic or purchase the medicines come from? People pay taxes and provide labour – and even when they are unable, their vulnerability needs a social net to cushion some of their basic needs. According to you, those clinics are built from what? Why shouldn’t the people on whose ancestral land the minerals are mined from benefit? What you are purveying here are the same arguments that exploiters and expropriators of resources have used since the colonial times, to the present day ‘capitalism without a human face’, that has taken root in some regions of the world. There are enough resources in this world to go round – they have just not either been harnessed properly or have been glaringly stolen time…
Forgive him. He’s a f00l
Characteristics of a failed state. We’re not yet there but we heading in that direction.
The so called illegal miners will not stop invading the area the Gold bearing site as long as gold is there. There is need to energize the electric fence, guard dogs will not deter the illegal mines as they can easily be neutralized. Shoot on site by security officers will be political suicide at local and international level. The only solution will be apportioning a small tract of land for the locals to mine from and create a market within the local area to mop up all the illegal gold so that the money is returned to the treasury. Wherever there is presence of gold and diamonds there is always a rush. Govt through ZCCM-IH should come up with a well designed mechanism to manage the gold to the benefit of the locals otherwise these disorders will always be there. if not well managed those…
How can a country allow people to play with its gold in such a way, look at how our friends have fortified FORT KNOX, maybe bakalibe kuinvelapo.
@ KZ. You rigged the elections in 2016. You were part of it.
When UNDP is in power I hope to see your shenanigans in public. I hope to see you masquerading with a firearm in public.
Let’s see if you have the balls
You are so obtuse. An ape had more brains than you.
Government could take a leaf from the policy in Tanzania whereby the site of the such mine is shared in acceptable proportion between the villagers on one hand and the state on the other. In that way both parties are happy.
Defaulters playing with their wealth… likely enough to even avoid loans. Ttulo! So cabe ni kuba cabe…
Well,well, A gold mine company with no proper security system it seems like a heist insde job. look at the worker’s faces!!! lol.
The govt must come up with a flexible system that will benefit the locals by allowing them to mine gold and the govt buys.
The only person I fail to understand is KZ and his level of analysis.
It’s hard to farthom why a mine with such precious minerals can be secured with only a wire fence. Surely we can do better to protect our minerals which all Zambian citizens must benefit from and not only those evil thieves. Mines Minister or whoever is in charge poseniko amano please. Put up befitting security structures. Emulate how other countries secure their mining areas.