UPND demands transparency in the sale of KCM
By Staff Reporter
Opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) chairman for mines Percy Chanda has demanded transparency in the sale of Konkola Copper Mine (KCM).
In a statement to newsdayzambia.com, Chanda said as expected, the PF were being secretive and taking an undesirable route in the whole transaction.
Chanda said the PF must come clean on whether this transaction was not one of those disguised as sale, yet it was being gifted to the Chinese as part of the debt swap.
He said citizens needed to know on whether the debt mountain owed to the Chinese government would not lead to the auctioning of national assets such as KCM, as was the case with the dubious ZNBC transaction.
“Simply put, is the so called sale, a Chinese debt unbundling exercise under the smokescreen of a business transaction? And citizens, particularly those on the Copperbelt openly rejected the Chinese take over, of the mines because of the misery they have caused in other towns such as Chambeshi Township. Zambians will not allow a covert and fraudulent takeover of their assets through the backdoor, arising from reckless borrowing which we warned the PF against,” Chanda said
He added that citizens would demand for total transparency from the PF on this impending sale, failure to which they would be called upon to account when the UPND takes over Government.
“But more importantly to us, any sale of KCM to other investors should consider the following as a bare minimum: 1. Employees must be given their dues before another investor takes over.2. Any investor who will take over should consider employing those who have been working for contractor companies on permanent employment before going for outsiders.3. KCM suppliers and contractors, especially local companies, should be paid their dues in full before embarking on fresh contracts,”
