By Staff Reporter
Nothing good will come out of the mining companies flocking to the Copperbelt as it is one way Hakainde Hichilema is serving his interests by “scratching his sponsors backs”, says Economic Front (EF) leader Wynter Kabimba.
Speaking on what he observed as stage protests by people in Chililabombwe for KCM to come back and also the coming back of Anglo-American, 20 years after they abandoned 60,000 workers and the country in general, Kabimba said arguments by the President that these mining companies were here for the benefit of Zambians was false, as the President was trading national resources as a reward for his sponsors so that they come here and make profits.
“Firstly, I said it from the beginning, from the time Mines minister Paul Kabuswe made the statement that if KCM wants to come back we are going to give them conditions. What followed was the letter by KCM in which KCM was giving itself conditions,” Kabimba said, referring to the promise by KCM to increase workers salaries and pay suppliers among others. “So obviously, the letter was feeding into an already agreed deal between UPND and KCM. Those statements are not isolated. They are interlinked.”
He said during that very period, the President held a press briefing in South Africa where he indicated that the government and KCM had agreed to stop litigation, and that immediately following that KCM rejected the appointment of the new provisional liquidator appointed by the government.
He said while the matter is still pending in court, a “stage managed” demonstration was held in Chililabombwe where Kabuswe is member of parliament ‘demanding’ that KCM should come back into the country.
Kabimba said there was another intervening situation where the collective negotiations at KCM were put on hold to accommodate the coming back of Vedanta.
He said this should be clear to all that the mine workers unions, government and Vedanta were all in bed with each other, and that this was for nothing.
“KCM (Vedanta) must have financed the UPND. So this is payback time for the UPND. Nothing good will come out of this for workers of Zambia,” Kabimba said.
He said the same applied with the coming back of Anglo-American, saying “the ball game being played was one of scratch my back and I will scratch yours.”
“There is no doubt that these multinationals heavily financed UPND for their own interests in the last elections. Now that they have delivered the elections to HH they are demanding that HH deliver promises to them,” Kabimba said, adding that there was no doubt that the UPND has had meetings with Anglo-American and that the President kept arguing to them that he was not losing elections but that they were being stolen from him.
He argued that they were not coming here to offer employment as large scale mining mainly relies on machines and not human beings, saying if the mining companies have been providing employment, the Copperbelt would not have been as poor as it was now.
“This is not about the Zambian people. Zambian people are being used as a smokescreen. It’s about the interests of the multinationals. They actually walked him into State House,” said Kabimba.
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