Lower Zambezi mining decision: Zambia’s poor investor compliance history keeps repeating itself

By Grandy Ntumbo

The Zambian economy has yet again been fraught with yet another mining investor controversy following the Zambian Government’s recent decision to grant a mining licence and Zambia Environmental Management Agency’s (ZEMA) to grant a go-ahead for the Lower Zambezi National Park open-pit mining project to proceed.

Essentially, this project is known as the Kangaluwi Copper Project owned by Mwembeshi Resources Limited. In the recent past two weeks, I came across a Worldwide Fund for nature (WWF) Zambia Facebook post entitled “Halt mining in Lower Zambezi.” I quickly recalled that only less than six months ago WWF Zambia country director Nachilala Nkombo had assured me that one of the new dawn government ministers had assured her that the lower Zambezi mining project would not proceed. I therefore immediately called her to find out what WWF Zambia advocacy post on the organisation’s Facebook page was all about and what had changed since our conversation a few months.

Indeed, in the last two years, I have found myself increasingly passionate about Zambia’s tourism-led economic growth. I also subscribe to Zambia’s agenda to foster climate smart industrialisation and economic growth. From my very early childhood, I have always supported wildlife and nature conservation in Zambia and in the last two years I have found myself supporting the WWF Zambia through various ways including advocacy to support Zambia’s agenda to foster a tourism-led economic growth.

Following my conservation with Ms Nkombo, I had to immediately get in touch with researchers and legal minds connected to the ongoing litigation between stakeholders and Mwembeshi Resources Limited regarding the Lower Zambezi mining project. In the next two weeks, this platform will endeavour to delve into what has transpired from the time ZEMA gave a go-ahead for Mwembeshi Resources Limited to commence mining operations in the Lower Zambezi National Park.

From 8 March 2022, I published two articles in the Times of Zambia entitled “How Lower Zambezi mining project decision affects Zambia’s long term sustainability” and “Effects of Lower Zambezi mining decision on Zambia’s tourism, national economic strategic management”. For this discourse I would like to recap an overview of the above articles to provide readers, particularly this publication’s new readers and followers a background of one of Zambia’s mining and investor controversies in decades.

Remarkably, I have personally examined correspondences, documents, and so forth between all concerned parties, pertaining to the Kangaluwi mining project. From these correspondences, it is apparent that Mwembeshi Resources Limited has not complied with ZEMA conditions of carrying out mining activities in the Lower Zambezi National Park. For now, let’s leave this for the ‘main meal’ next week so that we delve into the background as earlier alluded to.

1st February 2022, I stumbled into a petition by the large coalition of civil society organisations (CSOs), traditional leaders, artists, safari operators and other stakeholders to Republican President Hakainde Hichilema to honour his campaign promise to protect the Lower Zambezi National Park, and halt a controversial open-pit copper mine. This furore follows the Zambian Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss an appeal by civil society organisations against the proposed large scale open-pit mining project that has been raging for a number of years now.

Following on media reports dating 31st January 2022, they reveal that the Ministry of Green Economy and Environment indicated that the controversial project will proceed under strict adherence to measures set by the Zambia Environmental Management Agency.

Environment minister Collins Nzovu said the measures were aimed at limiting damage to the environment to a minimum. Earlier on, then presidential spokesperson Anthony Bwalya was reported as having said that government would guide on the future of the open-pit mining project in Lower Zambezi National Park at an appropriate time.

“All due processes of the law and any other additional due diligence requirements will and shall be respected and carried out before the new administration can guide on the future of the said project,” Mr Bwalya said.

What was the genesis of the Kangaluwi copper project in the Lower Zambezi National Park by Mwembeshi Resources Limited? What is the bone of contention by CSOs, are they just making noise? Are they justifiable? Let’s carefully look at the ministerial statement on the status of Kangaluwi Copper Project in Lower Zambezi National Park by then minister of Mines and Minerals Development Richard Musukwa on 17th October, 2019. This statement provides an in-depth insight into the quagmire, the ‘skeletons’, processes, legalities and where Mwembeshi Resources Limited faulted A to Z of it!

“Mr Speaker, I thank you for giving me this opportunity to inform this August House and the nation at large, on the status of the proposed large-scale mining project known as the Kangaluwi Copper Project in the Lower Zambezi National Park by Mwembeshi Resources Limited following the ruling of the High Court of Zambia, delivered on 17th October, 2019. Sir, I will begin by giving a background to the licence before proceeding to give the position of the Government on the project.

Mr Speaker, the Kangaluwi Copper Project started during the reign of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) Government with a grant of a large-scale prospecting licence on 18th December, 2003 to Mwembeshi Resources Limited, a subsidiary of an Austrian Stock Exchange Listed Company called the Zambezi Resources Limited, which is now called, Trek Metals Limited.

Sir, the licence was granted under the Mines and Minerals Act of 1995. The company commenced prospecting after the approval of the environmental project brief report by the then Environmental Council of Zambia (ECZ), now the Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA).

Mr Speaker, Mwembeshi Resources Limited applied for a large-scale mining licence following the completion of the prospecting works and was granted a large-scale mining licence on 16th March, 2011 by the then Minister of Mines and Minerals Development, Hon. Maxwell Mwale for a period of twenty-five years, in accordance with the provisions of the Mines and Minerals Act Development No. 7 of 2008. However, the project could not proceed with the mine development because the environmental and social impact assessment had not been approved by ZEMA.

The issuance of the mining licence was done without the prior clearance from ZEMA, but was conditioned on Mwembeshi Resources Limited obtaining authorisation from ZEMA prior to commencement of the mining operations.

Sir, on 14th March, 2012, Mwembeshi Resources Limited submitted an environmental and social impact assessment report for the proposed Kangaluwi Copper Project to ZEMA, which was rejected. Mr Speaker, on 19th September, 2012, Mwembeshi Resources Limited appealed against the decision of ZEMA to the then hon. Minister of Lands, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, Hon. Harry Kalaba, in accordance with the provision of the Environment Management Act No. 12 of 2011. On 17th January, 2014, and in exercise of the powers vested in the ministry under the Environmental Management Act No. 12, the hon. Minister revised the decision of ZEMA and approved the project.

Mr Speaker, the House may wish to know that according to the Environmental Management Act as read together with the Environmental Protection and Pollution Control (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations, Statutory Instrument No. 28 of 1997, and as contained in Condition 3.4 of the decision letter of 4th February, 2014, Mwembeshi Resources Limited was required to commence implementation of the project within three years from the date of approval. Failure to commence a project in the required timeframe rendered the authorisation granted to Mwembeshi Resources Limited invalid and therefore, Mwembeshi Resources Limited is required to resubmit the environmental and social impact assessment report to ZEMA for consideration.

The decision letter for Mwembeshi Resources Limited expired on 4th February, 2017. The decision letter for Mwembeshi Resources Limited expired on 4th February, 2017.

Sir, notwithstanding the High Court ruling, mining activities will not proceed because in accordance with the Environmental Management Act, Mwembeshi Resources Limited was required to commence the implementation of the project within three years from the date of approval. The company’s failure to commence the project within the required timeframe rendered the authorisation invalid. Therefore, Mwembeshi Resources Limited is now required to resubmit the environmental and social impact assessment report for consideration by the Minister of Tourism and Arts.

Mr Speaker, it is through these processes that the project in the Lower Zambezi National Park will be assessed to determine whether to proceed or not. Therefore, Mwembeshi Resources Limited is required to obtain approval from the Honourable Ministers responsible for national parks and wildlife and the environment. Further, the company should obtain consent from the source right holders, where necessary, as enshrined in the Mines and Minerals Act.”

The author is managing consultant at G. N Grant Business Consultant, a Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA), a Master of Business Administration (MBA) holder with specialism in Strategic Planning, and a candidate for the Herriot Watt University (Scotland) Doctor of Business Administration (DBA). Send feedback to: [email protected], Mobile +260-977-403113, +260-955-403113.

By Isaac Mwanza

(Continued from yesterday)

The resentment of South African towards the West and in favour of Russia is somehow justifiable. In the 1960s and into the 1980s, Western countries had classified the South African black liberation leaders Nelson Mandela and his Southern Rhodesian counterpart Robert Mugabe as terrorists.

Mandela had remained on the U.S. terrorist watch list until 2008. The West had watched and failed to condemn the military and civil onslaught of black native population during the Apartheid era.

Russia stood with the black people of South African, Namibia, Southern Rhodesia and the former Portuguese African territories, arming, training and representing their interests across the political spectrum.

The fight at local level, in Southern Rhodesia and later in Namibia and South Africa itself, was heavily supported by Russia which offered not just arms but military training, propaganda and powerful diplomatic support at the United Nations.

It was clearly a fight not just against the proxy oppressive white regime on African soil but also against their principals in Amsterdam, Paris, London and Washington DC.

In the face of the Russia – Ukraine conflict, Zimbabweans appear more grateful to Russia for having provided support to the Zimbabwe African People Union which operated from Zambia during Zimbabwe’s independence struggle.

Zambians appear not to have forgotten that when the Ian Smith regime had launched airstrikes inside Zambia in 1979, the West turned its back on us while the Soviet Union (Russia) together with China, provided Zambia with the military aid which made it possible to continue with the struggle to remove the unwanted, exclusionary and discriminatory white regimes in Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa itself.

It is no wonder, then, that when Zambia’s public broadcaster posted a BBC news story on its Facebook page on 23 January stating that Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, would be visiting South Africa for the first time since the invasion of Ukraine 11 months ago, the reactions of Zambians on the ZNBC social media became obvious. At least 99 percent of the comments showed Zambians approved of the epic journey by the Russian Foreign Minister to Africa.

It’s common knowledge that Russia’s imperial past did not extend to Africa. However, Russia created a history of herself when she resolved to back Africa’s liberation movements fighting for independence from the exploitative western countries of the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and Spain.

Even the Germans had had “colonial possessions” in south-west Africa as well as in East Africa, of which it was dispossessed at the end of World War I in 1918. This is why Russia appears to elicit more support among Africans than Ukraine which seems to have lost its way since it’s departure from its centuries-old union with Russia, including in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or USSR.

While it was possible to conceive of countries such as Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan etc. as separate countries within the USSR, Ukraine was always viewed as an integral part of the Russian Federation which was the largest component of the USSR. There is therefore some puzzlement that Ukraine ever became a separate nation-state from Russia.

Africans have not forgotten the dark hours when Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was ousted and brutally killed at the hands of NATO in 2011. We have generally questioned NATO’s double standards over the Palestine-Israel conflict or it’s brutal invasion of the sovereign Nations of Iraq and Afghanistan, led by allied Western forces on the false pretext that Saddam Hussein had amassed weapons of mass destruction, and that Afghanistan’s Islamic government was harbouring terrorists who brought down the twin towers in New York city, killing thousands of innocent American and other citizens.

We as Africa strongly condemned the twin towers attack, but has never accepted it as a legitimate excuse for the US-led western invasion of Afghanistan or the false assertion that Iraq’s former leader Saddam Hussein had a hand in planning it.

We also know, thanks to Western education, that a major confrontation between the United States of America and Soviet Union ensued 60 years ago which almost brought the two long standing foes close war in what had been dubbed the Cuban Missile Crisis, in 1962. The reason?

America could not stomach the idea that Russia was placing its nuclear missiles and associated defensive arms and military equipment at her doorstep in Cuba, just 135 kilometres away from American shores.

The U.S. had failed to overthrow the new Communist government of Fidel Castro which had taken power in Cuba by overthrowing the regime of Fulgencio Bautista. It is on record that the US organised an ill-fated military expedition of Cuban exiles to invade and retake power from Castro, but had met with a catastrophic defeat at the hands of the new Cuban government in the infamous Bay of Pigs invasion. The role of the then Soviet Union was invaluable and demonstrated that Russia was ready to help Cuba defend her sovereignty.

Aren’t we then justified in our reasoning that what is good for the goose is good for the gander? If it was good for America 60 years ago to resist the military presence of its main rival in her back yard, it should equally be good for Russia to resist the presence of NATO military forces in her next door, Ukraine.

Russia has believably been resisting attempts by NATO to admit former countries that constituted the Soviet Union into its Alliance on the ground that such a move threatened Russia’s security. NATO, on the other hand, has been blatantly incorporating former Soviet States into its alliance and then setting up military bases in those European countries completely surrounding Russia while pretending that the new missile bases in Poland, for instance, are to stop Iranian missiles which may in future be aimed at the United States and its NATO allies.

Lest we forget, in 1983 the United States invaded the tiny nation of Grenada, in the western Caribbean Sea, when it elected a Socialist government which identified with the Soviet Union. Thousands of US poured into the tiny country, at the orders of President Ronald Reagan, because the United States could not tolerate a Soviet-friendly government in its sphere of influence”.

[To be continued tomorrow. For any comments and contributions, send email to [email protected]]

Published the Zambia Daily Nation