A blogger sent in a youtube clip about the mining in Mufulira by Mopani. A documentary, which you should have seen either on ZNBC or MUVI TV, produced by Alice Odiot and Audrey Gallet written in collaboration with Stéphane Horel was posted on Youtube in April 2012.
The documentary cover issues like where Zambian copper goes, taxes payed by the mining firm and the pollution caused in Mufulira.
Just in case you have not seen the documentary, it is posted for you here. It is 53 minutes long.
If you need to download the video for offline use, you can search Google for a youtube video download plugin for your favourite browser ( Firefox, Safari, Chrome or Internet Explorer) . The plugin will allow you to save the video to any format for offline viewing.
About time Zambians who don’t have access to the internet and those in the mainstream saw this thought provoking documentary…definitely wins an award from me…left a tear in my eyes first time I saw it last year.
Time to wake up people….
I WATCHED IT 2 MONTHS AGO, ITS INDEED A SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS ABOUT OUR COPPER AND HOW LITTLE WE BENEFIT FROM IT. CHILUBA WAS MANIPULATED BY IMF AND INVESTORS WE ALLOW TO COME TO ZAMBIA. I THINK GOVERNMENT AND POLITICIANS SHOULD ALL WATCH THIS DOCUMENTARY ,ITS SAD TO WATCH IT BUT THERE IS A LESSON TO LEARN FROM IT AND ZAMBIANS WE SHOULD HAVE NERVES TO ADVOCATE FOR POLICY CHANGES ON MINING. FIGHT FOR WINDFALL TAX
I suggest this video be shown to parliament. We have been cheated for way too long with empty promises over over again. Zambians have continued to suffer in abject poverty with no end to their suffering in site. One of the biggest copper producers still use galvanized pipes from India for plumbing works. No functional sewerage system, boreholes dotted all over towns for water supply, dillapidated schools….. and the cooper continue to be shipped out day and night. We must review all mining agreements.
This is very sad indeed. I never realized that Zambia can be such a victim. People need to work up and fight for what belongs to them. Their rights violated and no one seem to care. Wish i can follow the legal battle started by the Green and Justice organization.
We just seem to be clueless on what to do with the resources…. We have been miseducated and learnt more on how to be greedy and selfish at the expense of the future generation. Education has not worked for us! Where are the environmental scientists? Mining Engineers?…… They have all been corrupted to let this crap continue in this day and age. Shameful
The problem is our useless governments in Africa. The companies can not be blamed, the know that the are dealing with M.O.RONS who do not think.
Thats why alot of us left Zambia
I should regrettably agree with you….. it’s our governments to blame. It’s really sad and heartwrenching to hear and see all injustices in life
And your Govt is busy telling you more money in your pockets, this is real sad
I CAN NOW TAP MY SHOULD S FOR THE JOB WELL DONE,I CAME ACROSS THE VIDEO AND THOUGHT ITS TIME TO SHARE IT WITH MY FELLOW ZAMBIANS AND I DECIDED TO EMAIL LUSAKA TIMES SO THAT THEY CAN DO WHAT THEY HAVE EXACTLY DONE.THANKS GUY FOR THE JOB WELL DONE,I SALUTE YOU.
BA LUSAKA TIMES,WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER AND WE WILL SUCCEED OR FAIL TOGETHER.LETS FIGHT FOR MOTHER ZAMBIA.
Well, this has been very interesting. But what is more in interesting is the people involved . Young Zambian academics not politicians. I wonder if our Minister of Environment as any idea. What Iam saying is people it it is up to us to allow ourselves and be cheated by these clueless politicians who only think of their pockets or we should take the destiny of our country in our own hands. When are we going to wake up?! Look around the so called leaders we have. We seroiusness. Thanks to you Mwambwa. God bless you bro. I wish we had only leader in Government with a mind such as yours. Aaaaargh!
Don’t bother suing them for what they’ve protected themselves against. Sue them for creating and using biological weapons. Demand the world’s largest compensation figure of $900 trillion dollars. Watch their veins pop. Then we can have all the experts demonstrate the harmless and clean technology by setting up smelters in that pretty Swiss town and right next to the IMF and World Bank head offices, another at the Barclays Capital HQ, EIB. Charge for live streaming. Testing testing 1 2 1 2 or settle out of court :)
Then nationalization is the best way out until we know what we want….its sad indeed….there was another documentary done for Luanshya Chinese mine too by a British journalist………..Sata needs to watch this
Please someone urgently to give Hon Chishimba Kambwili to act now
Glencore has looted at leat $500 million (175 million in tax revenue between 2003 and 2008 from tax avoidance practices and $300 million lost on dividend payments from its 10% stake in Mopani)
The former govt was rotten to the core because it had been corrupted by foreign mining companies and the PF govt seems to be an impostor…
In 2011 MP Mukanga said Mopani should be punished for tax evasion but in 2012 Mines Minister Mukanga does nothing…
ENOUGH HOT AIR !!
———
Mopani should be punished for tax evasion – Mukanga
By Chibaula Silwamba and Mutale Kapekele
Wed 16 Feb. 2011
MOPANI Copper Mines must be punished for evading tax, says a member of parliament in whose constituency the mining firm operates.
continued
But finance minister Situmbeko Musokotwane says the government will wait for the complete mining audit report for the mines before taking action.
And Musokotwane says former finance minister Ng’andu Magande should outgrow his sadness and stop issuing statements against his ministry.
Yamfwa Mukanga, who is member of parliament for Kantanshi Constituency in Mufulira district, was commenting on the pilot audit on Mopani Copper Mines, which revealed glaring inconsistencies in production and revenue figures the mine submits to the Zambia Revenue Authority for tax administration, figures which the report indicated might not be trustworthy.
Mukanga said no government official must protect Mopani Copper Mines for violating the law by evading tax.
“I want to see the law taking
its course. Let the law visit Mopani and we see what is going to happen. I believe they are not just evading tax, I believe that there are people in government benefiting from this,” Mukanga said. “I am disappointed that the government has been crying every day and yet it is letting Mopani go scot-free. I want to go to Mopani and talk to management.”
Mukanga said the decision by the government, through ZRA, to protect Mopani and underpaying the mining firm’s evasion of taxes raised suspicion.
“I know there is something fishy. I am sure they government officials are not underplaying it for nothing. They are underplaying it at a cost and the cost is in their pockets. There is someone getting money from this evasion of tax,” Mukanga said.
He said Mopani was not undertaking any corporate social responsibility.
“For Mopani to be evading tax, I am very disappointed because Mufulira, where the mine is, is in a deplorable state; the roads are so bad,” he said. “If they Mopani were evading tax but were ploughing into the community they operate from, maybe people could be saying it channels money into the community but look at how bad Mufulira is. It’s terrible. Mopani is not ploughing back into the community.”
Mukanga demanded that the government reintroduce windfall tax to ensure that all Zambians benefit from the minerals.
He said the copper, which is currently trading at over US$10, 000 per tonne, was not benefiting the people.
He said Zambians and investors must share the gains from the minerals equally.
“This government is not providing enough tax regime. I am condemning the investors for failing to even pay what is due to Zambians,” Mukanga said. “This high price of copper at US$10, 000 per tonne will only be there for a short time and after that the Zambians will have nothing to show what they benefited from it. We need to have something to show to our children when copper is gone that this is what we built from the copper taxes.”
According to the audit, which covered activities of the mine between 2006 and 2008, including trial balances from 2003, conducted by tax specialists Grant Thornton and Econ Pˆyry of Nordic region, irregularities at Mopani hinge on its relationship with its parent company, Glecore AG, of Switzerland and
cover practices such as alleged transfer pricing, inflated operation costs, outright under-pricing of copper for exports and irregular hedging.
Mopani which operates mining units in Kitwe and Mufulira is 73.1 per cent owned by the Swiss commodity trader, Glencore AG, and the firm received a 48 euros million loan from the European Investment Bank.
ZRA regretted the leaking of the audit report.
And Mukanga demanded the removal of Mwansa Mbulakulima from Copperbelt as provincial minister after he said the region would not receive development if it continued to vote for the opposition.
“Rupiah Banda was supposed to have removed Mbulakulima from here,” said Mukanga. “The under-development we have seen on the Copperbelt are as a result of such utterances.”
But Dr Musokotwane said the government would wait for the complete report before taking action against the mine, which is majority owned by Glecore AG of Switzerland.
Musokotwane said the government had nothing to hide concerning mining revenue and that it had ordered the mining sector audit to satisfy itself that the mines were paying what was due to the ZRA as the country’s biggest industry.
He said the ZRA was “on top of things” and that it was too early to spell out specific action against the mine but promised that the government would act once the audit report was complete and submitted to them.
But in an interview with The Post, former finance minister Ng’andu Magande said the government had been corrupted by foreign mining firms judging by the uncooperative attitude
that mining investors took towards the auditors.
“It is very clear that it can’t be an ordinary investor who comes in and starts issuing instructions to somebody unless obviously he has been corrupted,” Magande said. “That is the only thing some of us started suspecting that the people in government have been corrupted.”
In response to Magande’s charge, Musokotwane said Magande should get over the fact that he was no longer a minister and allow him to work.
“It is difficult to comment on him (Magande). There have been many ministers of finance in the past but you will never hear them commenting about the serving Minister of Finance. I have worked for Bank of Zambia as deputy governor, I have been Secretary to the Treasury before but do I have to comment about those offices?
Brothers and sisters,this documentary was done in the year 2009 and it has been on the utube for quite sometime.These are some of the things our government is focusing on,the privatised party mmd was too corrupt,and we all knew since 1991.The party was never clean not even at one moment,change we wanted has come now lets work together and fight ba pompwe.Let us not be listening to hopeless politcians the like of Nerves,HH all they know is talk,talk find a solution, PF as a party is in control and working.
WHEN WILL PLUNDERERS BE HUNTED ???
This is sad. Its a huge scandal, so there are some tax heaven! The best approach is for Miners in the Copperbelt towns and all places where mining is happening to force the Mining companies to pay descent salaries or face closers. Unions do no function any more. Take the South African lessons where Minors demanaged not less than R16500 (US$ 2000 per months. which in KWacha could be not less than 10M net. These guys are ripping huge somes of money, so naimwe kulilapo, do not wait for money in the pocket no one will give it to you. Massive strike is a solution, and demand more money to spend as compensation, since even if GVT introduces Windfal or any tax, the funds will go to few politicians.
Ba LT, you need to be a little bit more serious. It has been over two months since I initially posted this during one of those heated debates. I just don’t get it why you had to this long to publish it. I guess you are still learning the journalism ropes. Good call though.
Ba LT, you need to be a little bit more serious. It has been over two months since I initially posted this during one of those heated debates. I just don’t get it why you had to wait this long to publish this important article. I guess you are still learning the journalism ropes. Good call though.
We let these guys into our pants and now they have us by our thighs and raping/sodomizing us every which way. Chiluba brought suffering to Zambia period. My heart just sinks to see such hard working families to at the end of bad government policies.
We are doomed.
Switzerland imports the bulk of the country’s copper. It means the same guys import using their companies cheaply and sell at higher price to industrialised countries. Guys how can you be at a well and be thirst??? industrial revolution is a key, using strikes is the only way to push these guys to share the wealth equally. You sleep you snooze…
General
This is the massive GDP our governments have always been singing about everyday yet what remains here is just a mere wage bill for unskilled miners…we need to wake up the likes of Glencore not only produces, they market, buy, store and sale commodities. We need to be two steps ahead like Botswana. These guys are bleeding us dry and polluting the air,ground and rivers in the process….try that in the US and you will crying like BP writing out billion blank cheques.
To add insult to injury some miner wants dig up the lower Zambezi for 400 unskilled jobs by appealing the ZEMA’s decision.
The smelter under Zccm interim was established way long before the worlds biggest commodities company (Glencore) and first quantum bought it out meaning that the problem was still prevalent with pollution, mopani has invested trillions of Kwacha to be ahead of schedule by 18months to recuperate the smelter, they have a health care plan for people which Zccm didn’t have, they have sunk a syncrinollium super rocker shaft to extend the lifespan of the mine by 20+ years and added 1000 plus jobs to the 30000+ workforce they have already, in short mopani is the top 10 mining companies in the world with 100% efficiency the government can not castigate them over this issue because they will lose out on jobs and revenue when mopani decides to shut down that smelter.
the other thing is Glencore are big dogs in the game it’s like Michael Sata and BArack Obama comparing themselves on whose more Power Elite in the world, the government would cry if mopani shut down the smelter again, for instance they thought they were smart ( the government) when they got into power they shutdown the smelter for 4 days mopani was loosing 750000 dollars a day from one smelter being shutdown and 3000people where temporarily layer off so who lost out? The Zambian government and the people. The other thing is I don’t blame Glencore it’s the Zambian Governments poor policies that have loop holes, ESP if you are a business Tycoon like Glencore you are there to maximize profit esp if they are loop holes, like the corrupt Zambian republic fool of illiterate people.
Rubbish! Just shut up
#31 & 32
we understand you are the henchman of those looters…
The govt must make an example by revoking your cronies’ mining license otherwise it will loose its credibility
Zambia Good Copper Bad Copper. Is showing at FRESH VIEW LEVY every Thursday 19:00hrs. The documentary is shown FREE OF CHARGE – on a first come first serve basis!
\:d/:-?[-( silly investors
honestly, documentary made me shade tears especially that i’ve lived in mufulira b4 and know that documentary has highlighted nothing but the truth. now who do we blame for this? politicians! they are cheats and are only preoccupied with enriching themselves.for example, how many the pf’s promises have been fufiled. honestly, we deserve better leadership.
mmd the one to blame. with time pf will turn things around because the president is passionate about zambia and the plight of zambians. viva sata
disturbing documentary. God help Zambia.
God help Zambia indeed
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