OWN CORRESPONDENT, Lusaka | Thursday
ZAMBIA’S ruling MMD party has rejected a parliamentary committee report that sharply criticises the privatisation of the copper mining industry.
The report on the privatisation of Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM), presented by the parliamentary committee on economic affairs, said certain ministers broke the law in the sale process and should be prosecuted.
Vice-President Christon Tembo criticised the report, saying that many of its allegations were false.
”The report should be discarded and rejected. It lacks merit and support from a majority of parliament members,” he said during a debate in parliament.
The report by the bipartisan committee accused Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) party leaders of flouting the law.
”The committee is seriously concerned that the process of privatising ZCCM was not always in accordance with the Privatisation Act and its subsidiary legislation,” MMD legislator and committee chairman Patrick Kalifungwa said during the debate.
The committee did not question the sale of the main mining assets to foreign investors, but criticised the sale of non-mining ZCCM assets.
The main mining assets were sold to Zambia Copper Investments, a unit of London-listed Anglo American Plc, and a consortium comprising Canada’s First Quantum Minerals Limited and Swiss trader Glencore International AG.
The committee said, however, the sale of non-mining assets was questionable. There were no records of some of the units that were sold and it questioned the prices that others were sold for and into which accounts the sale proceeds were banked.
In one case, it said, a former ZCCM executive had sold himself a company guest house. In another, one of the government’s negotiators was involved in trying to sell one ZCCM subsidiary to a business in which he owned a majority stake.
Copper is one the biggest employers in the central African nation of 11 million people. Copper exports are the country’s main source of hard currency.
The report comes ahead of a meeting by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank on whether Zambia qualifies for debt relief under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative. – Reuters