Republican President Hakainde Hichilema has challenged public office seekers to be visionary and aim to improve the lives of people rather than creating complications for the country.
President Hichilema said this yesterday in Chililambombwe when he officially handed over Konkola Copper Mine (KCM) back to Vedanta Resources Limited to signal the revival of the mine which had been liquidated by the former ruling Patriotic Front (PF) regime.
The Head of State expressed his delight over his government’s success in reviving KCM and further bemoaned the PF regime’s decision to liquidate the mine thereby crippling its operations since 2019.
“I want to call this a special day because if we look back at what this asset has gone through, it was very difficult days. If we look back at when somebody whether they were dizzy or not, decided to put this mine into liquidation it was really difficult and that is not what leaders do. If there is a problem in the business you don’t create a more deeper problem, you don’t exacerbate the problem but you find a solution,” President Hichilema said.
“Putting KCM in liquidation was never the solution; it was deepening the problem that this mine was going through. When we were in opposition we opposed that decision and this business should have been managed differently.”
President Hichilema appealed to politicians to seek public office for the sake of bettering the lives of the people and called on Zambians to be critical with their choice of leaders.
“I want to ask my colleagues in the political arena to seek public office to solve problems and not to create problems. People of the Copperbelt I hope you can now make a distinction on who is a troublemaker and who is a solution provider,” he said, “Do not repeat the mistakes to allow troublemakers to worsen your situation. Leadership is about solving problems and finding solutions to benefit the people.”
With the revival of KCM, President Hichilema expressed confidence about the imminent development coming to the Copperbelt Province with more employment created and improved infrastructure.
“To solve problems you have to be organized. You have to ask where the funding would come from to sustain maintenance of township roads, you have to fix the businesses such as KCM first. When you fix KCM, it will employ more people and support more suppliers and contractors,” President Hichilema said.
“It will also pay taxes then those revenues you can use to fix township roads. That is how things work, in an organized and methodical way.”
The Head of State also tasked all stakeholders of KCM to be steadfast and ensure that the mine’s massive potential is harnessed to full actualization and the New Dawn government’s expectation.
“Our expectation is that we will restore the integrity of this mine. This mine will move towards 300,000 metric tonnes of copper production so it can contribute towards the 3 million tonnes of copper which is our vision.”
He continued: “We are on the journey towards our vision of 3 million tonnes and it does not matter who is negative because where we are now is at a point of no return.”
After a five year hiatus, KCM is set to resume full operations with Vedanta investing US$1 billion to revamp the mine which had been closed down due to a plethora of legal battles between the investor and the former PF government.
