A delegation comprising of officials from various government ministries is in North-Western Province to investigate the alleged job cuts by Kansanshi and Kalumbila mines.
The team which is being led by Labour Permanent Secretary Barnaby Mulenga and his mines counterpart Paul Chanda is expected to meet representatives from the two mines to get the facts right.
Kansanshi and Kalumbila mines have indicated to jointly cut about five thousand jobs due to the revised mining tax regime.
Speaking when the delegation called on North-Western Province Permanent Secretary Ephraim Mateyo in Solwezi today, Mr Mulenga said the team is in Solwezi to establish the main reason behind the threatened job cuts at the two mines.
And Mr Mateyo said as a caring government, it wants to strike a balance between the investors and the local people for the benefit of everyone.
Mr Mateyo was happy that the investors are being given a platform to be heard before a final decision is arrived at.
The delegation comprises officials from the Ministry of Finance, Commerce, Mines, Labour, Home Affairs, Justice, Information and the Zambia Revenue Authority.
When PF ministers have no clue in their offices, they all run to visit a collapsed bridge, a cow has given birth, a mine has laid off workers or see off, receive Lungu is at the airport. Shamelessly.
What can you expect when you look at the dull PF ministers at Labour and Mines …one is a retired Labour unionists from yeateryear and the other is a former Primary School teacher…the mine executives are simply waiting for them in the boardroom to eat them alive!!
What is wrong with communicating with these mines via Emails?
The fact is no one in Zambia can reverse policy apart from Lungu.
So sending this ‘army’ of civil servants is pointless. It is just another exercise by the PF to siphon allowances from the treasury.
What a clueless, wasteful, and incompetent government.
The mines have to be profitable and they have every right to fit resources in labour terms if they think it will compromise their profitability.
The Government should concentrate on reviewing their new tax changes.
I can’t wrap around this one.
Waste of time if you ask me
I hold a PhD
Thanks
BB2014,2016
So many useless permanent secretaries. What can those PF employees achieve, apart from going to eat game meat and collect allowances on top of the free salary they collect.
Send:
– Sinkamba
– Sean Tembo
– Savior Chishimba
Guys with letter S.
Shallow and quick investigations by cadres won’t yield much. They are simply delivering a political message like please! please! wait until the 2021 general elections, for now the government will subsidies fuel and electricity for you.
Really laughable…what is this team going to investigate its there in black and white…what a bunch of empty tins we have simply wasting money on allowances sending people from Lusaka. When we tell you that Lazy Lungu has no clue what he is doing and these are wasted Lungu years you think its an insult!!
You don’t come out as someone who’s intelligent. At all.
Gay Jerk.
You think your Kainde has a clue how to run a government, let alone an economy? You are the parrots who make him famous only on Facebook. Stay there piece of sh*it
There you go Bonehead spewing nothing but insults as usual like the kaponya you are and fixated with your silly Hakainde like the boy Sunday Chanda….is it him passing these tax policies and then sending people to go and investigate at the mines? Anyway you have no manners no internet etiquette ..you are simply a child of a massage palour who played with used contraceptives for balloons.
Learn to comment on national issues beyond your political beliefs. Why can’t you for a moment understand what the government intends to do? @ MunaDekhane for once please grow up!
A waste of time and resources sending this ‘team’. Job cuts are looming, government better have other plans otherwise these guys are just going to receive brown envelopes and do nothing about those who lose jobs.
This team will go to NW and CB then return with the same conclusion next the utterly dull Lazy Lungu will send the big tins Maggie, Msiska and Nonde with a blank cheque and hold a closed door meeting. Its the same game played out everytime and the mines come out tops, with this broke govt I can only see one result…hush hush deals behind the scenes with taxpayers losing out as always where mines are exempted from paying anything to keep a few casual workers in jobs.
They will come out with empty brown envelops. The mine is not like Mr. Nathan Chanda who has no teeth to bite or change mine decision; but has power to impress people that he is working by political demonstration with people who have nothing to do, but make noise in streets.
Some people feel the rain
Others just get wet
No some people are so daft that they believe its rain yet its someone pissing on their backs!!
Gay Jerk AR$E hole
LT Editor, look at this profanity above.. this is what people complained about ..this is not commenting but blatant insults by kids who are too immature for your website!!
PF govt are either stupid or simply lack savvy advisers …when you passed such laws you should have known the mines were going to respond in the only way they do but you didnt have plan B now you are at it again sending civil servants to to beg them not to relive miners. The mines have lamentably failed to open their books and show you how new tax laws will affect them….what is the Labour PS going to do in Solwezi?
You and your UPND are either stup*id or simply lack the winning touch. Every year opposing and criticizing the ruling party and its policies. Even where the nation as a whole stands to gain you oppose. Even where your relatives in the village will benefit you oppose. You have no clue the meaning of opposition. Your negative attitude has never won your UPND anything since 2006 under Kaponya (HH). Pathetic chap
You sit there alone with your empty tins and talk about your Hakainde and UPND …I have no time for foooolish kids like you!!
Small boyi!!!
To me this simply shows that it was wrong for us to Privatize the mines. The labour and mines PSs are going there to do what? Those mine owners have every right o retrench their workers if circumstances permit them to do so.It is not government that employed those workers. There’s no law that they are breaking by pruning those workers. Who would want their business to starting making losses due to increased taxes?
The step the government is taking today is suppose to have been the first step before announcing or proposing the 2019 National Budget. The budget was made from pure academic angle without closely looking at the factors which affect the source of income. This is what happens when incompetence people are employed in key positions and supported by unqualified workers. The government had all the time to meet the mines when the mines announced last year that they will lay off some workers when the sales tax is implemented. Now, the government is panicking. What is the government going to investigate since it doesn’t have proper data. At least the move which the government has taken is better than Mr. Nathan Chanda & group making noise in streets.
Before the Ministry of Finance announces a National Budget, they engage all stakeholders. The Mines cannot not claim ignorance.
So the government sends a team of investigators of which 80 percent of them have never worked in the mining industry to discuss with miners the intricate details of how to save jobs and reduce costs for them. .. all they will come back with is an education report they will be given..
am wondering why we always have to dance to the mining companies tunes. Let the mines give caesar what belongs to caesar.
They are the biggest taxpayers next you and they know…you are dependent on them for revenue as all your politicians do is reading about diversofying the economy yet spend money overpriced inflated roads and shambolic bridges.
This time we are supporting the mines
Ba UPND you always think you more educated and intelligent than others but the truth is the opposite. Intelligent and highly educated people dont look down upon others instead they always realise that intelligence without effect or results is equivalent to madness.
Just like your chief hynae HH, he thought he knew all things and everything but look st him, he shall forever be a second class political twit. HH can only see as far as his hand permits him, period.
@ Malinso, can you for once stick to the subject and forget your obsession with UPND and HH?
As to your intelligence and common decency, did you know the meaning of either and if you know, where did you loose them? In your executive pit-latrine?
I am glad ZRA is accompanying Hon. Mulenga; they are tough and should help him maintain a tough stance and resolve. There has been so much hysterical reaction from anti government pundits on this issue! Calm down. The government does know what it’s doing and it’s direction to earn more for the mines on behalf of the citizenry of this country is apt. There is need for developing countries to get a bigger share from their resources in the investor relationship. First, NW Zambia is experiencing these redundancies due to undue influence and ‘opposition politiking,’ this is akin to a shallow baby laying on the floor screaming and popping it’s fists at a change they don’t like until mummy changes her order! Let’s look at a report from Reuters.com today on Tanzania’s efforts…
Tanzania named Cotton Biteko, a new mining minister on Tuesday amid a prolonged spat between the government and gold producer Acacia over a $190 billion tax bill, which has severely limited the London-listed company’s operations in the East African nation. Biteko comes from Magufuli’s home region and has been deputy mining minister since January 2018. He previously lead a parliamentary investigation that concluded there was widespread tax evasion and smuggling in the gemstone business, allegations that companies working in the sector have denied.
“He knows the mining sector well, so we expect continuity of policy,” Tanzania Chamber of Minerals and Energy (TCME) executive secretary Gerald Mturi said.
That’s, Ditto Biteko. It continues, quote, ‘In 2017, the government passed laws that the industry complained would be costly and onerous. Among other things, the laws hike taxes on mineral exports, mandate a higher government stake in some mining operations and force the construction of local smelters, a move some companies said was uneconomic.
Report continues, ‘The reforms are part of a wider push by African governments to claw back revenues from mining……..’
The upshift is that there is an unfair advantage Mine firms are getting, keeping African developing countries in poverty as these Mines cater to high profits for the foreign investors. NATIONALISE
NATIONALISE AND RELEASE THESE INVESTORS. You can see already they are assisting opposition ahead of 2021. Government must stem this campaign ahead of 2021. Maintaing the status quo that sees Mines continue to rob us is an election loser. Dithering between setting new taxes, quotas, import taxes will be damaging for PF.
Dig in and win this situation. NATIONALISE.
When we point out the weakness of the government with our sincere hearts, it means we love our country. Just supporting the government with no valid substance will never help us to drive politicians and the government to work effectively. If the opposition, say HH has a valid point, the ruling party can make good use of it for the benefit of our nation, if the point is not valid and no value, we tell HH is off. For instance, the cause of the worst load shedding in the history of Zambia, the opposition and the government were both wrong about the cause. The input is necessary from the citizens. Up to date the government has not told the nation the causes despite the Load Shedding Report from EIZ.
@Patriot Abroad: I doubt if our team really knows what they are doing. Why send such a battalion of officers? This is no time for fact finding. I hasten to mention my suspicion here again that we might have hatched this project without plan B. Given that HE the president has already given his position on the matter( ie no miner will be laid off) the expected thing was to summon mine owners to state house. That way Govt authority is stamped. By sending a t PS’s we risk diluting the presidential statement
Sorry…meant that way Govt would best stamping at its authority
How much will be raised by these taxes annually ?
How much is the annual total wage bill for soon to be displaced miners ?
GRZ should use the taxes raised to retrain the miners into other jobs.
Which “other jobs”?
I submit that this is no time for fact finding. Rather, it’s time for stamping sovereign authority unless and unless we don’t have plan B
If this government was in control, the MDs of the mines would have been ordered to come to Lusaka NOT the other way round….
P@nyo Foools have failed to run the govt can’t even come up with a proper ta regime, too many dander heads and kaponya’s in the chipante pante govt with ministers who graduated in grade 4, plan B for these dull morons is to give the Jerabos to run the mines, these morons are all dull and have brains the size of peanuts just like the useless cadres that support this sh!t….. ni dununa reverse nechachine
This is akin to asking whether a ‘bad plan’ is better than ‘having no plan’. The problem is we don’t quite know which one this government had, before the tax hikes.
The sending of a delegation, though, suggests there was no plan. If there had been, the government would simply say, ‘take it or leave it – we have made a policy decision’