President Levy Mwanawasa has refuted a story which appeared in yesterday’s edition of the Post Newspaper headlined ”This Chap KK is Decampaigning MMD-Levy.

In reaction to the story, President Mwanawasa said he never said what was attributed to him as the word ‘Chap’ was not his language and that he takes very strong exception denying that he never referred to Dr Kaunda as ”this Chap”.

In a statement released to ZANIS in Lusaka today by Special Assistant to the
President for Press and Public Relations, John Musukuma, Mr Mwanawasa said the
report by the Post was unethical as the meeting quoted was a Party Executive and
closed meeting.

Mr Mwanawasa confirmed talking about Dr Kaunda in answer to a question raised by one
of the party officials who
wanted to know why he was tolerating Dr Kaunda and Mr Sata who unfairly talk ill of
him.

The President said the Party Official in his question noted that Dr Kaunda would not
have brooked the amount of criticism and would have been quick to deal with such
people by detaining them adding Mr Sata being a disciple of Dr Kaunda would never
have tolerated the kind of attacks he had been making.

In response to the Party official’s question, Mr Mwanawasa said that he regretted
that Dr Kaunda does not appear to reciprocate the kind of treatment which he had
offered him as a parent and as the founding father of the nation.

Mr Mwanawasa said he did not deserve this treatment by Dr Kaunda and that he had
been rather unkind in his remarks about the MMD Government and the President himself
despite the many things which he had done for him

”I commented however that whether l really deserve this, the people of Zambia would
judge”, Mr Mwanawasa said.

With regard to MMD Presidential aspirants, President Mwanawasa said that the
contents of the story can only be intended to antagonise him against his MMD
colleagues.

The President explained that he informed the meeting that it was not the interest of
the party for him to step down before the 2011 General Elections and proposed as
”food for thought that the party could require him to stay on as Party President
until elections day and at the Convention they could elect a presidential candidate
who would become party president on elections day.

The President denied that his proposal to remain in office until election day was
for a perios outside the stipulated time and said that when the Convention is held,
he will  not have served either five years of the second term or ten years of the
cumulative period that he will have served.  

”This would enable to lead the Party and to be at the head of the tripartite
elections. This would all be within my two terms both as Party and Republican
President.

In addition he also stressed the importance of selecting a presidential successor
who had integrity and who would treat fundraising for the Party as of paramount
importance because the party needed to be sufficiently funded to enable it discharge
its operations.

President Levy Mwanawasa says the Constitutional Conference would have no legislative power to make or alter a new Constitution.

Mr Mwanawasa said this when he explained to party officials during a meeting in Livingstone on the difference between the Conference and the Constituent Assembly.

This is contained in a Statement released to ZANIS in Lusaka today by Special
Assistant to the President for Press and Public Relations, John Musukuma.

Mr Mwanawasa said the process to amend the current constitution  through the
constituent assembly  would be long and very costly to the nation and fail to
achieve the desired result.

He further said legislating for a Constitutional Conference which would have no
power to make or alter the Constitution but pass its resolutions to Parliament for
enactment, is simple and less time consuming.

Mr Mwanawasa said because all the Members of Parliament would be members of the
Constitutional Conference, there is a high probability that Members of Parliament
would vote to legislate whatever the Constitutional Conference adopted.

He stressed that the method was inexpensive, less acrimonious and would make it
possible for Parliament to legislate those provisions which were  not contentious
and defer those that require the holding of a Referendum.

”It is possible for an agreement to be made on almost 80% of the document.  At the
end of the day except for this explaination,  there was no difference between a
Constituent Assembly and Constitutional Conference. You can call it what you want
‘Constituent Assembly, Constitutional Conference, Convention, National Indaba, it is
all an exercise in semantics”, Mr Mwanawasa said

Zambia, a former recipient of food aid, has given the U.N World Food Programme (WFP) 10,000 tonnes of white maize to feed orphans and people living with AIDS, a senior aid official said on Thursday.

WFP country manager for Zambia, David Stevenson, said the government donation would be used to help feed hungry people in Zambia where the aid agency requires an additional $10 million to feed Zambians affected by floods in the last rainy season.

“It is the first time Zambia has done so (donating food) and it’s a tremendous gesture in many ways that shows we are collaborating well with Zambia in meeting the needs of hungry people,” Stevenson said.

He added assessments were underway in Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Malawi and Swaziland on food requirements, and part of the Zambian donation could go to help feed hungry people elsewhere in Africa.

“The priority for distributing this food will be within Zambia because we have 600,000 people requiring food aid while the donation can only feed 550,000 people for three months,” Stevenson told Reuters.

Officials say thousands of Zambians and Malawians still face food shortages despite maize surpluses in the two nations in the 2006/07 season.

In June, Zambian Agriculture Minister Ben Kapita said the country’s 2006/07 maize output declined 4.4 percent to 1.36 million tonnes compared with output for 2005/06 due to floods which destroyed the crop in 41 of the country’s 72 districts.

Kapita said Zambia would keep 250,000 tonnes of maize in strategic reserves in addition to the surplus of 160,000 tonnes the previous year.

The government last week authorised traders to export 200,000 tonnes of maize to Namibia and the democratic Republic of Congo.

In Zambia, where one in every five adults aged 14 to 49 years either lives with AIDS or is infected with HIV, people especially in rural areas are unable to feed themselves because they either spend too much time nursing relatives suffering from AIDS or are too sick to grow their own food, officials say.

The Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) says it strongly supports calls opposing Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) Strategic Partner Vendata from acquiring an additional 28.4 percent shares in the Mining Company.

ZCTU Deputy Secretary General Ian Mkandawire said giving Vendata any additional shares in the company above the 51 percent which it currently had, would deny Zambian’s a chance to effectively partcipate in the managment of the Zambian economy.

Mr Mkandawire said Government must instead float the 28.4 percent shares to the Zambian people as a way of empowering local people to actively participate in the managment of local resources.

Mr. Mkandawire in a statement to ZANIS in Kitwe today said the concept of the Citizens Economic Empowerment Commission would only be beneficial to the Country if Zambians were allowed to take up economic opportunities such as taking over the 28.4 percent shareholding in KCM currently being held by the Zambia Copper Investiment Holdings (ZCIH).

He said government was aware of a number of controversies surrounding the mining industry particularly as regards the various agreements which had attracted calls for revision.

He added that Government should not bring about controversy by allowing Vendata to acquire further shareholding in KCM at the expense of indigenious Zambians.

He said his union was concerned over lack of social responsibility by current Mine owners which needed to be addressed adequately by off-loading some shares to
Zambians for direct attention towards the improvement of communities in which these mining companies are situated.

Mr Mkandawire said his union stands strongly opposed to any further acquisation of shares by Vendata in KCM and that Government should give serious consideration to the matter.

Meanwhile, Zambia’s total finished copper output will hit 1.2 million tonnes in 2009, against a previous forecast that said the country would produce 1 million tonnes in 2011, a senior industry official said.

Tim Henderson, the Chief Executive Officer of Mopani Copper Mines (MCM), said production of copper would rise faster than expected because the life of the vast copper and cobalt mines had risen due to exploration and modern mining technologies.

“Copper Production has increased from 257,000 tonnes in 2000 to over 500,000 tonnes in 2006 (and is) projected to reach 1.2 million tones by 2009,” Henderson said late on Tuesday.

President Levy Mwanawasa said in April the country was set to double its annual copper output to 1 million tonnes by 2011 following discovery of new reserves.

Henderson, who was speaking in Livingstone, 480km south of Lusaka at a Zambia economic and business forum, said the southern African country would have to invest in infrastructure such as roads and energy to handle larger volumes of copper.

“Zambia is not the only country working hard to attract FDI (foreign direct investment) in mining… we should therefore not relax. Privatisation has been a great success and boosted the economy through huge investments and job creation,” he added.

Zambia’s state run copper mines were privatised starting in 1998 when Chinese investors purchased the Chambishi Copper mine.

Henderson also said Mopani had in principle agreed to renegotiate development agreements with the government, which plans to raise mineral royalties to 3.0 percent from 0.6 percent and corporate tax to 30 percent from 25 percent.

“In principle, mining companies are willing to renegotiate the agreements. Any future change in the rate of mineral royalties should be linked to copper prices,” Henderson said.

Henderson was giving Mopani’s stand on impending increases in taxes for the mining firms for the first time after Konkola Copper mines, Zambia’s largest copper producer, said in June it was willing to pay the higher taxes.

Some foreign mine owners said the taxes would be too high.

Mopani, which operates the Nkana mine, Mufurila copper mines and the Mufulira Smelter is the country’s second largest copper producer. MCM is a joint venture of Canada’s First Quantum Minerals and Glencore International AG of Switzerland.

Mwanawasa has been pushing for greater foreign investment, including Chinese, in the country’s copperbelt region in a bid to modernise ageing mines and raise exploration and production.