President Hakainde Hichilema has disclosed plans to bring Mopani Copper Mines and Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) back to full production.
Speaking during a media briefing at State House yesterday, President Hichilema stated that government is determined to bring Mopani back to life.
Mr Hichilema however described the revival of KCM as complicated citing the appointment of Provisional Liquidator Milingo Lungu by the previous administration adding that such a situation should never have taken place.
He however stressed that no court processes will stop the government from resolving the matter.
He said the government will use the Public-Private Dialogue Forum for Development to address issues concerning the two mining firms.
“In this Public-Private Dialogue Forum for development, we are putting KCM and Mopani as workstreams. We have already been putting in a lot of measures. That’s why you hear the noise on the liquidator at KCM because he was sitting in the way of resolving the KCM problems. The rest I won’t say much but KCM, Mopani, to unlock them. Mopani we are very close,” he said.
Mr Hichilema also said that Kasenseli Gold Mine and First Quantum Minerals are additional mines whose issues will be resolved through the Public-Private Dialogue Forum for development.
“We are putting First Quantum in there (in the workstream) because we have to unlock the 1.5 billion dollar investment in there. We have to unlock Kasenseli,” he said.
The President further dismissed some social media reports suggesting that government wants to hand back KCM to Vedanta Resources, stating that such reports are falsehoods
He said once the mines are back in operation, the people on the Copperbelt and Zambians at large will benefit.
Mr Hichilema explained that the mines will bring revenue into the country as well as foreign exchange and vowed that his administration will never allow illegal mining in the country.
He admitted that it was a mistake for the government to allow illegal mining in Mumbwa where three people died in a mining accident in February this year.
Mr Hichilema also encouraged small scale miners to apply for licenses so that they can mine in a legitimate way.
“This government made a mistake to allow illegal mining to continue in Mumbwa until people died. I accept that mistake on behalf of the government. We should not encourage that to happen anymore. Get your license, that’s why we have shut the license office cadastral at mines to reorganize it for the people of Zambia so that licenses are given to the Zambian licenses,” he said.
Mopani is currently on care and maintenance while KCM is in liquidation.
This is what we wanted to hear on KCM because it was inevitable to speculate after reports that Vedanta donated to the UPND for their campaigns. Further, Vedanta has been in the media trying to launder their image. So these speculations were justified, especially that you’re known to be a ruthless capitalist
The most sensible thing chitimukulu advised was not to pay attention to all barking dogs………..
I didn’t know that Kasenseli had issues apart from one chief trying to get his share of the cake.
The Liquidator was standing in the way…..Was asked to resign to pave way for your plans ? Did he negotiate his resignation with your team of advisors ? Mr. President, were you aware of such negotiations? Is Milingo lying that he met your named state house officials? You said the DPP is on her own. Are these officials who cut the deal with Milingo also on their own?
The only reason you are unable to counter against falsehoods is your ministers are not open to the media and you ahve a Form 5 school leaver girl as information minister
One is really given to wonder what kind of criteria Lungu was using to appoint people, imagine that quack lawyer Milingo Lungu appointed as provisional liquidator1 Or Lusambo as provincial minister for the province where the capital is located or worse still appointing that thug Kainyokolile Zulu as political advisor. Something was clearly wrong with Lungu, he was fuc.ked up badly in the head.
It’s a good position you need not repeat the same mistakes to bring productivity to chingola and the copperbelt in particular Vandetta in it’s current capital structure and stratergies that includes Bitcoin is not suitable for Investments into KCMs in an ESG sense and long-term in that sense Doing the opposite could have been very surprising and a question on long-term view on the mines on the copperbelt Some share and participation by SMEs around the minning value chains will be critical also not those short-term diminishing unstructured mine damps
It’s about having a competitive minning startergy for long-term with citizens beneficial activities around legitimately permited companies minning firms not artisans or corporates for some levels of minning and grade With difinition and ownerships of resources both non inferred and inferred resources in exploration We went to Dubai SMEs capital was raised for including this minning activities in excess of $4B what is the follow-up It’s not only from there but also other areas of partnerships
Mining must perform this 2022 atleast it should be not same storyline
Okay