Mine Workers Union of Zambia and the National Union of Mines and Allied Workers have Welcome Government’s 100% acquisition of Mopani Mine.
Mine Workers Union of Zambia president Joseph Chewe said the acquisition of 100 percent shares in Mopani by ZCCM – IH comes as a relief to the mineworkers. Mr. Chewe thanked President Edgar Lungu for taking into consideration the plight of the workers. He said it is the desire of the workers that Government carefully scrutinizes potential equity partners for the Mine as it is a pillar of the country.
And National Union of Mines and Allied Workers President James Chansa said the mineworkers will support the candidature of President Lungu as he has listened to their plea.
Yesterday Glencore Plc has agreed to sell its stake in Mopani Copper Mines Plc to the Zambian government for $1.5 billion, but will get just $1 upfront. Once the deal is complete, Mopani will owe its previous owners $1.5 billion that will be repaid from sales and profits going forward. Glencore, will retain offtake rights for Mopani’s copper production until the debt has been paid.
However, United Party for National Development (UPND) Mp and Former Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane has told the UK’s Financial Times that the terms of the Mopani takeover meant that “history is repeating itself” with a mine nationalisation that was a bad deal for Zambians.
Dr Musokotwane said that Mopani would be devoting a share of revenue to pay off the Glencore debt.
“Whether Mopani makes profit or not, the first call on revenue is to pay Glencore. It is therefore easy to see that there will be times when core business activities in the mines will not be funded so that Glencore gets paid.”
Musokotwane is a Washington Consensus practitioner, so for him any form of GRZ ownership of national assets is tantamount to nationalisation. These people believe GRZ should not involve itself in business that’s why MMD (of which Musokotwane was part of) went about selling everything and anything to foreign ownership. Levy oversaw the sale of KCM for $25m. So what is upnd’s policy should they take power, will they sell everything back to foreigners???
UPND and Akainde beaten 0 – 1 by Lungu and PF.
Musokotwane wants the mines to be sold by Akainde again.
Back to nationalisation
Great. We are buying back what that crook hh sold to his imperial bosses for peanuts. I hate you upnd. I hate all upnd diasporans who will soon comment with their hate
Kasenseli Gold can help offset Glencore’s debt and we start rolling sooner than later
…reminds me of Scenes back then when relatives of the deceased would share the property, leaving the widow and Children practically blank and here it comes: the Uncle from mwankole village would pompously grab the fridge and deep-freezer, kumushi no malaiti!! fyesu kabili… 🙁
See.. the miners are happy… What do the desperate politician want to lie to Zambians
Pay back debts obtained recklessly to feed PF greed and corruption. Extra debt on acquisition of Mopani mine ‘Tayakamilubulule’ Nkongole still need to be paid back.
Govt is doing what’s best for its people
We thank God for this times repurchase
HH has said fikapwa. He will come and sell it back to his friends.
We are behind you PF and dr Ecl this is a good move,HH chapwa we can not vote e for you
Upnd vision less party atase ,is all about selling of properties shame
Upnd your lies will kill you,your bitterness is something else mwalipona akale
Dull PF cadres or Mineworkers Union representatives have conveniently forgotten the $1.5 billion Zambia will now owe to Glencore.
Mopani(formally Nkana Mine) was privatized by Edith Nawakwi and Francis Kaunda for around $20 million.
Now the PF are buying it back for $1.5 billion using debt when the country owes $27 billion.
Next will hear that the PF have borrowed $1.5 billion from the Chinese Exim bank.
This is not buying back ba stupid imwe. You got a loan of 1.5 billion US dollars for you to take over this mine. You are paying 1 billion then you remain with 500 million US dollar. The question is where are you taking the remaining 500 million? You want to share?
The government’s priority has always been protecting the jobs of many Zambian miners …we thank God for the caring government
These chaps are agreeing to everything that government is doing because the same government just wants to keep them happy until August. After that if the same government comes back and fails to pay them for 3 months is when they will realize how they were duped.
DIDN’T REALISE WE HAD SO MANY CLUELESS PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE THIS IS THE SOLUTION
GOD HELP THEM WHEN THEY FIND OUT ITS NOT GOING TO BENIFIT THEM ALL:
Ubupuba!
Its unfortunate some quarters are telling off Dr. Musokotwane as though he is talking from the blues. Hey pipo this man knows how the likes of Glencore operate. Its a bad deal for Zambia and who ever was advising govt/ZCCM-IH were deep asleep Th winner in this case is Glencore as they have cleverly offloaded an toxic asset on Zambia and they stand to gain from the deal even when the price of copper goes down from current over US$7000 per ton. As for the union leaders, the guys are blank they don’t understand the intricases of the deal other than in ensuring their members jobs are protected. This is another broad day robbery by Glencore, they bin imbalaz(Corporate Mafia) and they will be smiling every month.
Many people do not understand this:
principal outstanding under the Transaction Debt will be repayable under a dual mechanism whereby:
i. 3% of gross revenue of the Mopani group from 2021-2023 (inclusive), and 10-17.5% of gross revenue of the Mopani group thereafter; and
ii. 33.3% of EBITDA less tax, changes in working capital, capital expenditure, royalty payments and interest and principal (calculated under the first mechanism) payments in respect of Transaction Debt, is at the end of each quarter required to be paid.
GLENCORE DIRTY DEAL: Who is fooling who?
Copper is trading at $7,979 per tonne on London Metal. Richard Musukwa has allowed ZCCM-IH to sign a deal with Mopani to sell them the copper at $2,300 per tonne until they manage to pay back $1.5 billion.
Meaning Glencore will be making $5,400 per tonne on top of all the copper it buys from Mopani since it’s the sole buyer.
The ruling PF government has managed to reduce autonomous centres of power which could have emerged from the Mine Workers Union for voters in the upcoming 2021 elections. A strong and independent Mine Workers Union is seen by the PF as actual sources of opposition. The PF government is using the rhetoric of saving jobs as a way of compromising the Mine Workers Union. This is meant to prevent organized labour from becoming a base for political and industrial action. The two representatives of the Mine Workers Union are already PF partisan cadres. Don’t expect these two to seriously represent the interests of workers on sustainable and quality jobs. Instead of asking serious questions on the agreement government has made in buying the mine, the Mine Workers Union representatives are…
We managed to run KCM because Anglo left us with $300 milion.The bigger issue was to develop konkola deep project in order to increase life span of the mine. That alone required about $1 billion which the government didn’t have, so they had to look for equity partner who happened to be Vedanta, other investors were never interested to keep other units such as nchanga and nampundwe, that mearnt loss of employment in the two units. Vadanta promised to keep all units without job losses .
But ba upnd ma satan.ist, ba sad to see good.. Ba upnd and it’s god hh have insulted Zambians who do you have such a stu.pid statement saying Zambian can’t run the mines! Sure! HH you are foo.lish, So because you have been promising demo.ns that fund you,mines, kanshi hh the money you made during privatization is it not enough! And you ka musokotwane you must be the last one to speak. Are you not the one we told us that Zamtel was not able to make profits and you deceived RB into selling the campany. Where is Zamtel today! Zambians wake and see ..These upnd chaps are up to no good.. Already I have heard two statements from the sata.nist ati i will come and sell.. this stu.pid boy called hh can’t be trusted..