MPs issue uranium security alert

Wed, 15 Feb 2017 08:53:00 +0000

By OSCAR MALIPENGA

MEMBERS of Parliament, on the committee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, have appealed to the Government through the Ministry of Home Affairs to ensure that uranium resources in Zambia were protected.

The committee, led by former Inspector General of Police Dr Martin Malama, who is Kanchibiya Patriotic Front (PF) Member of Parliament, expressed fears that there was lack of proper communication on issues of national security on uranium ore mining.

Speaking when Home Affairs permanent secretary, Mulenga Chileshe, appeared as a witness before the committee, Dr Malama demanded to know who the focal institution or person for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Zambia was.

He told the PS and his delegation that as a new institution the ministry needed to familiarize itself with the agency’s key elements in order narrow the gap of knowledge.

“What we have identified is that the right hand is not talking to the left hand. There is no proper communication and for issues of national security that cannot be allowed,” he said.

Dr Malama told the PS that his ministry needed to be communicating with the agency.

He also reminded Dr Chileshe to be communicating with the Radiation Protection Authority as an institution which was overseeing security and terrorism in order to ensure that the gap was narrowed.

And UPND member for Bweengwa said he was concerned that Mines minister Christopher Yaluma recently announced that investors had been found for uranium ore mining in Sinazongwe.

He said the issue of uranium in Zambia had become a serious topic and that it required Government to be on top of things in terms of registration and how the situation was going to be handled to make sure that everything was in order.