‘Give Black Mountain to ZNS’ – for youths and women to benefit, says Peter Sinkamba
Written by MRadio on April 6, 2022
By JOHN KOMBE
GOVERNMENT must rethink its strategy and surrender the famous Black Mountain to the Zambia National Service (ZNS) if youths and women are to benefit from the copper slug in Kitwe, Green Party president, Peter Sinkamba, has said.
In an interview yesterday, Mr. Sinkamba said that the current operations at the Black Mountain were only benefitting a few individuals leaving out the youth and women.
He advised the government to restructure the operations for the benefit of youths and women.
Mr. Sinkamba also observed that the community which had endured the pollution from the slug for years were not benefitting from the well-intended empowerment.
He said that as much as people from other areas also had the right to benefit, it would be immoral not to prioritise the locals.
He stressed that handing over the site to ZNS would greatly help to create a conducive environment for the youth and women to benefit.
And speaking during a television programme, Oxygen of democracy on Prime Television on Monday night, Democratic Party (DP) president, Harry Kalaba described the operations at the Black ountain as disappointing.
He claimed that senior government officials and ministers were benefitting from the operations.
Mr Kalaba also advised the government to hand over the site to ZNS who had the capacity to employ youths and women in a much more transparent and organised manner. He said that the current operations were not any different from what was happening under the Patriotic Front regime and must be changed.
Meanwhile, a resident of Nkana West where the Black Mountain is located, Mr. Chilufya Kolala alleged that the consortium which was said to be made up of cooperatives, community members and women in mining was a mere scam.
Mr Kolala alleged that the consortium was only getting commissions as they had no capacity to run the project which they had secretly surrendered to unknown buyers.
He appealed to the government to listen to expert advice to bring order to the entire operations.
He lamented that no member of the community was benefitting from the operations, but insisted that the community cannot be left out because some of them have lived there since the 1960s.
