PARLAIMENT heard yesterday that the employee portfolio for one of the country’s mining giants, Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) has been going down from around 11,978 in 2008 to last year’s 9,696 because of the global economic crisis.
Mines and Minerals Development Deputy Minister Jazzman Chikwakwa said this in response to a question by Chipili MP Davies Mwila (PF), who wanted to know whether there was a reduction in the number of employees at the company.
Mr. Chikwakwa said the numbers had been going down steadily, but when asked further questions by opposition the MP, Mines Minister Maxwel Mwale said there were explorations that had been undertaken by KCM that could lead to increased employment levels while the effects of the crisis had come to an end.
Mr. Mwale said the opening of the new Nchanga smelter which did not require more labour also led to further cuts to the employee portfolio.
Mr. Mwale said KCM had more expatriate employees as compared with Mopani Copper Mines because the former had been running new explorations that required expert skills.
And Home Affairs Minister Mkhondo Lungu told the House that 33 police officers had been dismissed between 2008 and 2010 for various offences ranging from absenteeism to robbery, among others.
Mr. Lungu said this in response to Mr Mwila’s question, who sought to know the province with the highest number of dismissals.
Mr. Lungu said Lusaka had 14 cases of dismissals and was the highest.
Earlier, his deputy Lwipa Puma said one of the police officers was dismissed for absconding from duty for six years while 13 were involved in an offence of theft by public servant.
He said only one of the 33 police officers was female while the rest were male.
And Deputy Minister of Justice Todd Chilembo said the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) spent K43 million and K25 million to monitor elections in Lesotho and Tanzania, respectively.
The commission also spent K1.7 billion on the delimitation exercise that took place in 2005 while 84 election petitions were recorded between 2001 and 2010.
And the Human Rights Commission (HRC) has concluded 664 cases in the last few years out of a total of 1,232 while the rest are still under investigations.
Meanwhile, 162 Zambians serving in various missions abroad have been trained by the Zambia Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies.
[ Times of Zambia ]
Some dull MPs. You want KCM to keep a high number of employees? Its a private company and they can even reduce the number to 1000 Zambians. And again this Mwila MP wants to know the province with the highest number of Police officer dismissals? For what?
What is ECZ doing spending money in other countries?? If they are invited to monitor, the host country should be footing the bill!! This is not a charity!! ACC should be looking into this revelation. If we were monitoring on behalf of the African union, the organization should have been paying – this is alot of crap from ECZ & this govt to be tolerating such behaviour!! There can be no better time than now to turf out this govt with its ECZ!!!!
The minister should have gone further to explain how employment has increased as a result of investments in the mines as we are being constantly told.How come there were no follow up questions in Parliament?
You people are you telling me that this is when you know that KCM has reduced labour? Because even that figure 9696 is not correct. The numbers have reduced further. As we are talking now the total KCM labour is just about 7000+ and they are still reducing the numbers through V.S.S(Voluntary Self Seperation)
This is the same government that tells us that there is more job creation in the mines but the truth has come out.They even allow expertriates to work purely handyman’s jobs like fitters, welders,drivers, etc. but this government says that those a rare proffessions in Zambia.What a shame to MMD & their mobile president.By the way,they have even brought in chinese to operate the mobile hospitals( trucks)
government at work!!!
KCM is not a government entity but private.So whatever they do with their labour is their indaba.
# 1 : for sure ni mwebo ba mmd:mwandy mweka daddy: you mean dont know the reasons y officers are dismissed? its u who is dull not the MP coz i would sense something in the questions. Police officer like other govt workers are there to serve the interest of the zambian pipo. And we see offences that policer officer commit, that makes t reasonable to know action taken agaisnt such culprits. Let me just say u are one of such irresponsible man? Please i urge you to put your five senseless sense before you post anything here.
Regards to you(sensible man as u think of yourself):
Our government and our money at work..viva RB..ABASH CYCLE MATA(there are laws in this country, laws to protect u……..gayism and lesbianism)
# Chissy: Point on! I was actually wondering why the ongoing VSS has not been mentioned. The truth of the matter is KCM has been over staffed for a whille and the company is only now trying to act
The data for Employment statistics in Zambia is readily available but not analysed by the appropriate authorities. NAPSA Monthly Returns capture the number of new hires and those leaving employment on a month-to-month basis. Why the CSO/NAPSA do not publish Quarterly reports based on this data is upto anyone’s guess. All we hear is that new jobs are created but no credible data to back the facts. Its hard not despair sometimes…but then again, if we do…who will make the difference!
Ka minister wabufi,imwe tu mmd y are u so in a hurry 2 make lies everytime & anyhow.that figure u just metioned is totaly a fabricated one.kcm employees are somewhere 7000+ not 9000 and what of vss?telling & frustrating employees to resing so that they can give them litle money.u dont work for kcm so stop rubishing things u dont know coz u dont know ow people are frustrated with kcm…watch out this year!!!
What we all fail to understand is that mining is a very muti disciplined activity. Do you count the secondary jobs which have been created by service providers to the mines? Thats the jobs which are value add and important because the are specialised. Here in Australia the figure stands at 15 jobs are created for every direct mine job. From my last visit in Zambia looking at the activity in Kitwe, Ndola, Chingola, Mufulira etc am sure this should be the case.
Yaba the story goes on…………………………….
Next time we should have a criteria for choosing MP’s because the calibre of some of these MP’s leaves much to be desired. The questions they ask do not make any sense.
If you’re a youth and not an advocate for change, shame on you !!
and sorry to say you’re Dull as an empty shake shake chibuku !!
MMD is ruining this country and you don’t want to try something else, something new, watever it is, change will definately do our beloved mother land alot of GOOD !!!
I took a tour over a month ago to chingola kcm,to my surprise they have subcontracted a firm called FLSmidth who are currenly runing the whole nchanga concetrator laying off all employees leaving a few zambian engineers only.Furthermore by september,the whole underground operations will be subcontracted to foreigners while zambian engineers will be paid peanuts just to keep there families running.These outsourcing services that are done by foreign firms needs to be checked otherwise we expect more expatrites than zambians
thats why rb and his minions are going come december. Viva pabwato viva sata… Donchi kubeba kopala iweeeeeeeeeeee
No.8 KUKU
So what if 16 or 33 or 100 officers were dismissed? Tell me what the figure will do?
kcm is actualy in a terrible poistion coz sh company lucks seriousness.thy ar daily flyng in useless poorly qualified so calld expatriates fr doing nothng nd hv zambians work like slaves fr peanuts.wht special projects tht thy nid”expatriates?” useless expatriates go to smeltr whch is way passd project stge nd stil has so many of these indians one geting th salary of 4comptent engineers.shame on u rb fr allowing kcm conduct ity self in ths manner.kcm shud b investigtd by pf fr corruption nd exploitation