The ruling United Party for National Development – UPND Mwinilunga Member of Parliament has accused the Zambia Consolidate Copper Mines Investments Holding – ZCCM IH of playing games on the Kasenseli gold mine reopening.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Zambian Business Times – ZBT, Mwinilunga Member of Parliament Newton Samakayi expressed displeasure at the ZCCM IH that is handling the matter adding that they are the ones that are causing delays to reopening the gold mine.
Government had announced its intentions to partially re-open the Kasenseli Gold Mine at Mwinilunga District of Northwestern Province. Reports indicate that the Government through the Zambia Gold Company, a subsidiary of ZCCM-IH had set aside $2.6 million towards the compensation of Kampoko Resources so as for the firm to surrender its mining license to the government.
Mwinilunga MP stated that “while the government is desirous of having the mine open, I think the officials at ZCCM-IH are playing games with me because I have been wanting to find out why the mine is not re-opening and they referred me somewhere where I was told that it is actually them that are delaying the reopening of this mine. So am going there and they need to tell me why they have this problem”
“You see this is a green field mine not like well it was operational for a few years under very suspicious circumstances so the potential and the impact of that mine is not known not until there is transparency and it opens so we can only speculate about the impact and we are positive that once the mine reopens our people will have business.”
Meanwhile, Samakayi said the issues of illegal gold mining on site cannot be ruled out as not everyone can be trusted.
“Obviously I can tell you that where there are good seeds and people are put there, where there are 20 people 5, would be good the rest may not be good. And everyone is corrupt by nature and once an opportunity avails itself anybody can be corrupt. And corruption is in many ways and in some cases the scale is high while in some cases the scale is low so basically all of us are corrupt if you like. But once some when they are exposed to situations they would want to get it in a big way.”
“So you can’t rule out that the people who are keeping the gold mine cannot get something that’s being naïve.”
“I want the government to move in quickly so that the mine begins operations so that those who will be running the mine can put up measures to ensure that no one is stealing the gold and also that people around Kasenseli and Mwinilunga are benefiting from those resources.” He said.
