Operations at Nampundwe Mine in Mumbwa District will come to a halt on Monday 4th May due to restructuring in the KCM group of companies.
This has been announced by KCM Group Human Resources manager Susan Ziko who said the pyrite producing mine will remain closed for at least nine months before re-opening.
Ms Ziko said this when her team briefed Mwembeshi Member of Parliament Edward Kasoko at the constituency office on the future of Nampundwe Mine.
She however said none of the 321 miners will lose their jobs as KCM management has taken necessary measures to ensure the future of the miners.
The KCM human resource manager said in a bid to come out of the current global economic crunch, KCM has found it fit to transfer the Namundwe Mine Larox Filter machine to Nchanga Mine to help in the production of cobalt.
Ms Ziko however said KCM has already placed an order for a new Larox Filter from Sweden which will be installed at Nampundwe.
The KCM official said the Nampundwe miners will be asked to stay at home from Monday with options to choose which KCM mine on the Copperbelt they would like to be transferred to while a skeleton staff will be chosen to keep Nampundwe Mine afloat.
Ms Ziko said there is also an option for those who want to be separated from KCM operations.
But Mwembeshi Member of Parliament Edward Kasoko said the Larox Filter from Nampundwe can only be taken to Nchanga after a memorandum of understanding has been signed between his office, the Minister of Mines, Mine workers unions and KCM management to ensure the promise by KCM to re-open Nampundwe after nine months is adhered to.
He said this will be done in order that if KCM does not stick to the promise of re-opening Nampundwe after nine months, the Nampundwe community will be free to pursue the case in the court of law adding that no matter how long the case will take, the community will eventually win.
Mr Kasoko said this has been done because the community does not trust KCM which keeps changing its goal posts.
ENDS/MM/AM/ZANIS
I only hope it will just be monday. Or is it the beginning of the end?
Ooooooooooh after reading further ati nine months? What are the people going to eat? Please promise the people that the alternatives you have put in place will help them in a long run.
This Global Fimo fimo is killing us o
last time something like this happened, assets were on trucks enroute to South Africa…..
lets hope KCM sticks to its plan
But RB seems never to be concerned he is taking the bunch of his clan for leasuere instead of looking at the challenges we have
This doesnt taste good,while all this is happening,President Banda is on holiday in zim visitin his birth place.meanwhile they alot of challenges facing workers in zed.anyway happy may day to all workers.
Its a day ya kupasa icililo cha baleka incito
Jobs come, jobs go. These companies would have collapsed a long time ago but they were maintained by socialism Did you know that at on time, ZCCM directly employed 60,000 people? The World Bank in the 80’s suggested that they should be reduced to 24,000! There has been over-employment in Zambia and it is time people got real money earning jobs. New Zealand with a population of 5 million, no mines is one of the 30 richest countries in the world. Two small islands surviving on fishing, sheep farming, timber and tourism. The world’s second largest man-made forest is in New Zealand. OH! Zambians! Why do you want government to do everything for you. Go grow trees!
They will get their redundancy packages and the first port of call is AUTOREC for a 1980 reconditioned Toyota Cressida! Shame. I know Government can play a role and that would be to provide pension and redundancy workshops, empower the citizens with loans for enterprise and legislate capitalism. I understand that all these are in place. Thanks to Chiluba, none of these people will be homeless. UNIP sent us all to sleep. We became totally dependent on Government for everything: housing, water, electricity, education, health and eventually even meallie meal! Most former UNIP leaders are living in poverty because of this. KK (I still like the man as a man) demonised making money. Making money is not a sin. It is next to godliness.
THE SAINT
Your words would put a big smile on an economists face. I totally agree with you. The only problem I have seen is everyone wants to go into the cities to go and mine or work in one of the few manufacturing industries we have. They have forgotten that agriculture can surely afford them the life if not better than what they had working in the mines.
The problem is we all want to grow maize. Try something different. Try growing Cassava or wheat or start a piggery.
For those like me who have no skill in farming, I urge some of you to start Cassava milling companies. You would make a killing when the maize price shoots up sometime in October as people would be looking for a substitute and if Cassava meal is cheaper than mealie meal, they will surely buy.
The SAINT: Your wise words can better be used in Zambia if you are around to implement them
THE SAINT
Just to add on a little on what you have said. Capitalism is not “making money”, it is serving your fellow man. If you serve your fellow man, they will reward you for it.
An example would be if the mealie meal price shot up, you would serve your fellow men by providing an alternative. You could sell them Cassava meal which might be cheaper thereby serving your fellow men by providing a cheaper alternative.
With Capitalism, you can only make money by providing what people need or want. If your goal is to make money, you’ll make losses because you cant force people to buy what they don’t want. That only happens in socialism.
This is a sad development but I have always wondered what people come to do in the cities when the infrastructure is chocking with this over population. You can make a living in the rural areas. The Luapula province is now accessible thanks to the Levy Mwanawasa Bridge.
What I see is countless opportunities if we stop the “blame govt” mentality and innovate. We are now in a free market. Luapula province has got a lot of water, you can start fish farms which will enable you to catch fish all year round. You can then sell the fish in Lubumbashi (DRC), the Copperbelt and Lusaka. This can also provide sub industries like ice storage systems and transport systems as well as fish food. It can also provide value adding industries like[tbc
cont…
industries like tinned fish, boneless fish, etc. In the same Luapula, you can also put in place irrigation systems for farms. You don’t only have to plant maize if the floor price is not earning you an income. You can plant wheat, cassava, groundnuts. This would give NCZ some business and will also provide some value adding industries like processed fried nuts, baked nuts, etc.
So many opportunities. I need to go to Zed soon. I see so many opportunities.
My point is we must see how we can make a plus out of a minus. We are in a free market economy now. It is time to innovate.
If you see any of the following catch words please know it is a trick.
1.belt tightening to be done
2.economical reforms
3.pain to be endured
4.light at the end of the tunnel
5.level playing field
6.restructuring
7.layoffs
8.downsizing
9.redundancies
10.retrechment
11.structural readjustment
12.freemarket reforms
You cant,t trust the investors like KCM, their main interest is to maximize profits. So as for Nampundwe Hon. Kasoka should forget, the mine will remain closed for some years not nine months as KCM is trying to portray. We know well our friends from Asia.
#12 we want to know what you are doing outside the country while you encourage others to stay in rural area. The fact that everyone looks to a better life which rural area can not promise is the very reason that has made you out of this country. Oppotunities my brother is a catch word.
The Saint ,thou halt spoken thy truth.Diversification in Zambia the greatest public enermy.I dont know why,heaven knows.We have got alot of other stations to tune for the betterment of our lives but kept on listening to one radio “icengelo”.The start is always hard,and this is what we have kept dodging.Copper is not all there is.Think of Malawi,Kenya ,Tanzania the list is endless,how these countries have stood.
Yes # 12, 13.. you’ve make valid points in that aspect and i agree in part that we need a different set of thinking, the atitude odf govt responsibility should be disband, however we are not seeing that encouragemnt from policy makers and govt in a sense isn’t working out a recovery program to revive this economy. What we are seeing is a cycle of frustration starting from our fontine president. This man is a lose to Zambia. I can challenge you to point out any meaning suggestions that Banda has made in his 100days in office. This man is a fikkle!
The mining industry is now a circus with clowns who cant even juggle. Maybe Eddie Shamutete should come back to give tips on how ZCCM was run. At least then it was a successful venture with abundant jobs.
jst hope kcm will keep its promise after the said 9 months.Well,the only hopeful option to sustain our economy is to diversify rather than depending on copper mining.The fact is that the guyz who invest to run the mines ar only interested in making profits coz that is a business and they dont give a shit to the conditions of our people as long as they make the money and whenever they find that they aren’t making profts they leave.
We have made progress. We are now singing from the same hymn sheet. Not with the same tunes though but let us keep working at it and we will get there. We will have a Zambia we all want. If we could tackle our problems with the same alacrity by which we insult each other, we would be way up ahead in economic prosperity. We need to make wealth (‘money’) in order to serve those who are not able bodied as we are, the children, the fatherlessand the aged. Money answereth to all things.
From experirnce Nampundwe mine will never reopen and i believe all the workers will be pruned after sometime when KCM management is satsfied the government has forgotten about the issue. This is what happened at Nkana KCM, management assured the workers than no one will be lose the job because the will relocated to othe KCM IBU,s. Later we saw KCM throughing us in the street 700 of us. This what makes me believe that its the end of nampundwe mine
Ba govt too much playing with peoples lives… please save this mine for once!
Rubish!!!!!! pipo in authority don’t think right. it is the usal case, who is getting comission out of this deal?who is our government protecting? Shame
I am worried about “He said this will be done in order that if KCM does not stick to the promise of re-opening Nampundwe after nine months, the Nampundwe community will be free to pursue the case in the court of law adding that no matter how long the case will take, the community will eventually win” for how long is long here? long can me 100 years especially in looking at how some cases in our courts have taken more than 5 years to be sorted out. In fact, it is possible that some people can even die beofre their cases are complete. A case in point is the Gabon Air Disaster families whose settlement is still being sought even if it is claimed they won against GRZ in court to get help from the GRZ.
So, let us not play with people’s minds, but say one thing and mean it.
Very soon it will be mopani am told they are retrenching workers.
A different thought: These people bought the mine and are after business, and if they feel moving the LAROX filter machine to chingola will make their business more profitable, whyn stop them?
The only thing i feel this cruinch has done is to assist us with the second chance of running the Luanshya Mine ourselves. Maybe form there we can see.
The Zambian economy is literally built on sand. Now it is being washed away into the sea.
Agriculture was supposed to be one other way for Zambias survival but people RB just dont get it. Anyway mwamona? Chiluba got money for KCM, Mopani Minerva and all the others. God please save our land, kill them all.