By Isaac Zulu
Zambia Wake up Party (ZAWAPA) leader Howard Kunda has asked the UPND to stop giving special treatment to multinational companies that are running mines in the country.
And Kunda has observed that 2026 presents an opportunity for the young generation to take up the political leadership and shape the destiny of Zambia.
He said it is unacceptable to see the country continue giving tax holidays and other incentives to mines when majority Zambians are wallowing in poverty.
“I personally get upset to see that almost 60 years after independence majority Zambians are wallowing in poverty, especially that the country is endowed with minerals. We have emeralds, gold, copper, sugilite, manganese, lithium; you name it. But the people who are
supposed to benefit from these mineral resources are poverty stricken. It’s unacceptable,” Kunda said. “Some of these mining companies, like Vedanta have their overall boss who at one time, while outside Zambia went to an extent of even saying that they are making millions of dollars from our mineral wealth. And yet here at home, in Zambia they were telling us that they are giving us a loss balance sheet. They were claiming that they were making
losses. And in my view these multinational companies that are running these mines should not be given special treatment by the UPND government. They should not continue giving them tax holidays and these other incentives.”
Kunda, who also served as chairperson of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC), said Zambia’s minerals are being depleted owing to large scale mining, saying the environmental degradation
being caused by such mining activities is irreversible.
“These large scale mining activities have left big holes, like the one at KCM and other mining sites, which you cannot even bury. And yet the people living in these mining areas are not benefiting from their mineral wealth,” he said.
The former MMD Muchinga member of parliament also said the country now has a number of qualified Zambians with expertise to run the mining sector, and wondered why there is continued over dependency on expatriates to operate the mines in Zambia.
“Maybe at independence, which is about 60 years ago, our forefathers did not know how to do mining activities properly. But these days there are so many trained people, qualified Zambians to run these mines in management, some are qualified metallurgists or geologists,”
he said.
And Kunda said that the year 2026 presents an opportunity for the young generation to take up the political leadership mantle and shape.the destiny of Zambia.
“These that are in the current government are businessmen. And 2026 presents an opportunity for the young generation to take up the.political leadership mantle and shape the destiny of our country. We
need leadership that is passionate about serving the Zambian people,” said Kunda.
