It is not true that restricting power supply to Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) will flood and irreparably damage the mine.
Last week, Copperbelt Energy Corporation Plc (CEC) planned to restrict power to KCM, which owes a debt of $132 million, roughly K2.5 billion, for using power from CEC but not paying for it for about a year.
But KCM obtained an interim injunction from the Kitwe High Court restraining CEC from proceeding with its intended action after KCM said, among other reasons, that restricting power supply would cause irreparable loss, damage, and injury to its mining operations.
An industry source has explained to Lusaka Times that contrary to what is being said by KCM and what people think, reducing power is not the same as cutting off power altogether. That is why it’s called a restriction.
“There are protocols on how to restrict power to a mining operation. It’s not as though CEC would simply and indiscriminately turn off switches or something, no. The whole process is coordinated between the supplier and the customer. In fact, they agree beforehand which areas would be switched off and those that would be left and they already know from the contract between them the minimum amount of power that should be left in the event of a restriction. That minimum amount of power should be enough to pump out water in KCM’s case so it’s not true that the mine would flood and become damaged when power supply is reduced.”
He recalled that when CEC restricted supply to KCM in 2014 when the mine had accumulated debt, there was no flooding.
“People should remember these things and not be lied to. When CEC restricted power supply to KCM in 2014, did the mine flood? Have we ever heard after that restriction KCM demanding this and that from CEC because it was damaged when power supply was reduced?” he wondered.
He advised KCM to concentrate on finding money to pay their suppliers of goods and services especially when they know that the service is essential for their operations instead of peddling untruths to escape from living up to their obligations.
KCM is notorious for not paying creditors, including suppliers of goods and services on time. The government took over running the mine from Vedanta Resources in May 2019, placing it under provisional liquidation. However, the string of financial problems especially as far as paying creditors goes has not gone away and may, at least in the case of CEC, even worsened because from what is publicly known, KCM under Vedanta never accumulated such a huge debt in unpaid power invoices.