The Auditor General’s office is set to audit the empowerment administered through the consortium operating at the Black Mountain, Mopani Copper Mines and Konkola Copper Mines as soon as the 2021 audits are completed.
Auditor General Dr. Dick Sichembe says the black mountain is a public resource that is operating as an extension of the ministry of mines as well as Mopani and KCM currently under government control, and is required to be audited by his office as prescribed under the constitution for accountability purposes.
Dr. Sichembe’s remarks come in the wake of green party leader Peter Sinkamba’s recent call on the office of the auditor general to extend its audit to ongoing mining activities at the black mountain.
Meanwhile, Black Mountain Consortium Chairperson Kangwa Kamando has disclosed that the operation is set to release the 30 percent share of its total revenue over the month, to the Kitwe district commissioner’s office within the next 3 weeks towards beneficiary cooperatives.
Mr. Kamando adds that the consortium is currently undertaking an audit to quantify how much of the 30 percent of the black mountain given out as empowerment, has been utilized so far but was quick to mention that there is still enough of the resource yet to be used.
Yesterday, opposition Green Party President Peter Sinkamba called for the auditing of the Black Mountain mining operations. Mr. Sinkamba said that auditing the operations will make it easy to tell the impact of the empowerment programme.
the opposition leader said in an interview that black mountain was a public resource and was hopeful that the office of the Auditor General will take keen interest by initiating an audit on the resource.
“The Auditor General’s office should not ignore the auditing of the ongoing mining operations at Kitwe’s Black Mountain in the forthcoming
auditing of the mining sector so that stakeholders can appreciate how proceeds from the resource are being used,” He said.
Currently it was difficult to tell the impact of the 30 per cent black mountain empowerment on the communities because there
is no evaluation system put in place.
The Black Mountain Empowerment initiative was just like other empowerment initiatives such as the Citizens Empowerment funds.
It seems this Black Mountain empowerment which is supposed to be used as vehicle for workers to have initial capital to start their own businesses or working for themselves, as ended up as income in the belly from month to month without saving even 10% of income earned. Failure to save any money will not translate into empowerment.
Honest advice to Auditor General. The Office of the Auditor-General must refrain from the habit of making public pronouncements in the operations of his Auditors. This may endanger his staff at HQuarters & Provincial Offices. The professional culture of Auditors in private Audit firms and in public institutions (Universities) where Auditors refrain from socializing with institutional staff, usually work independently and only confidentially report their findings to relevant higher authorities. In the same vein the Auditor General must operate discreetly and confidentially report to the Republican President.
We are looking forward to be empowered as cooperatives we are keenly waiting in anticipation