End power impasse, orders Lungu

Sun, 27 Aug 2017 11:56:24 +0000

By BENNIE MUNDANDO

TWO ministers have been engaged to try and resolve the electricity impasse between Mopani Copper Mine (MCM) and the Copperbelt Energy Corporation (CEC) which has paralysed operations at the mine.

President Edgar Lungu has directed the minister of Mines Christopher Yaluma and his Energy counterpart David Mabumba to intervene and help MCM resolve the matter in a civil and descent manner as opposed to undertaking actions that could be misunderstood to be acts of blackmail against Government.

Special assistant to the president for press and public relations Amos Chanda yesterday said President Lungu was worried with the on-going stand-off between CEC and MCM and has directed the two ministers to intervene.

“The president has given a directive to the minister of mines to deliver a very clear and unequivocal message to management at Mopan to engage in civil, decent business practices rather than undertake actions that may be understood or misunderstood to be acts of blackmail against government.

“The president has instructed the ministers to engage Mopani and understand exactly what they want to do. Otherwise, the actions they have taken in the recent days appear unacceptable to the Government and the ministers will be outlining in full what other measures are available to Government to try and see that the workers are not disadvantaged,” Mr. Chanda said.

He said President Lungu did not understand why Mopani mine had refused to pay according to the new tariffs which other mines were complying with even when the mine knew that the issue of electricity tariff increment

“The ministers will be engaging with Mopani to deliver that clear message that the tariff adjustment is just one of the components of the broad reforms in the energy sector that Government announced on November 26, 2015 where the president gave a very clear intention that subsidies in the energy and agriculture sectors were going to be removed.

“Cabinet has passed policies and decisions and Government is following through and if those reforms have been accepted in the consumer sector by the poor consumers and households, the president expects that all sectors of the economy, both business and consumers must accept the reforms that have been put in place,” he said.

He said President Lungu did not understand why while the process to resolve the matter was in court, Mopani had started terminating contracts of Zambians only.

“The president understands that the process is still on-going and in court but he doesn’t understand how the case process and any other disputes can extend to the termination of contracts to only Zambian contractors and supplies and also threats to retrench workers and a whole range of activates hinging on failure to abide by agreed normal business processes,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mr. Chanda said the invocation of article 31 on the state of threatened state emergency was bearing fruit.

He said since the proclamation was made, there has been tremendous progress to maintaining peace in the country as barbaric and criminal politically-motivated activities that led to the declaration had reduced.

“What necessitated the invocation of article 31 was the situation where we saw rampant sabotage against public infrastructure, fires set on public buildings, vandalism to installation such as Zesco power lines, attempts to set ablaze the oxygen equipment at UTH and attempts to sabotage underground power supply lines in the mines and a whole range of criminal activities which were clearly politically-instigated.

“With the instigating of article 31, so far so good. Fires have stopped, attempt to damage public infrastructure have reduced and acts of arson have reduced. Police are recording fewer and fewer incidences of attempts of arson which were rampant during that period,” he said.