Mining companies not obliged to develop areas they operate in - Bantubonse

COMMENT - More shilling for corporate profits from the Chamber of Mines.

Mining companies not obliged to develop areas they operate in - Bantubonse
By David Chongo in Solwezi
Mon 19 July 2010, 15:10 CAT

MINING companies are not obliged to develop infrastructure in the areas they operate but they can do community social responsibility projects on voluntary basis in order to be viewed as good citizens, says Chamber of Mines of Zambia general manager Frederick Bantubonse.

And Centre for Trade Policy and Development (CTPD) executive director, Saviour Mwambwa has challenged government to reveal the contents of ‘secret’ Development Agreements that it signs with mining companies to residents of investment areas.

Speaking at a public discussion hosted by Caritas Solwezi in conjunction with CTPD on the subject: “the mining tax debate: an endless tug of war’’ on Saturday, Bantubonse said there were no such conditions requiring mining firms to build developmental structures in their areas of operation.

Bantubonse said it was not clearly stated in statutory regulations whether the mining firms had a strictly assigned role in developing areas where they worked part from their core businesses.

“It’s not a condition that you should build a road; it’s voluntary for you to do so. If Lumwana wants to do it, let them build but that is the responsibility of the government. There is division on who should do what and who should do what. Infrastructure development is up to the central government to do that,” he said.

He said residents of North Western Province should not blame the mines and transporters for causing damage to the roads in the region, saying even in Chingola, truckers to Kasumbalesa border were not charged anything despite damaging roads.
He said if there was a remedy, it should be introduction of tollgates.

And Bantubonse has described as unfortunate the decision by Lumwana Mine to distribute information booklets on uranium to villagers in chief Mukumbi’s area in English.
He said uranium was governed by rigid regulations, which needed to be well understood by concerned parties but advised that people should raise alarm if there was something wrong in their areas.

He was responding to a concern by chief Mukumbi’s son Kennedy Muluka who questioned why “illiterate” people in his area were handed sensitive uranium information in English which most of them could not understand.

And Mwambwa said there was growing dissatisfaction from people in areas where mining firms were not contributing satisfactorily to local development.

He said the local people were not seeing the benefits of having such huge investment in their areas, saying such situations left people wondering whether the secret agreements really contained local people’s concerns.

“The ordinary people are not seeing the benefits. Local people are supposed to share the revenue based on a certain percentage with the central government. Certain amounts should be allocated to them; a portion should be returned to specifically develop these areas where resources are coming from,” he said.

Mwambwa observed that it had now become a tendency for central governments to forgo their responsibility to develop infrastructure for citizens, leaving it in the hands of financial institutions like the World Bank.

“Infrastructure is not developed here. Why should the World Bank come to develop the province when there is money from the mines? Government should come in the open and explain to the people how these things (development agreements) are done. There is no transparency from the government on these issues,” he said.

Mwambwa advised that central government should deliberately draw up a policy in the constitution that would guide the specific percentages in benefits to the concerned local people regarding development agreements.

Meanwhile, Rodney Machila, sitting in for deputy permanent secretary Nkolola Hazemba and other stakeholders to the debate, expressed displeasure over the apparent boycott by officials from the local council and the two mining companies Kansanshi and Lumwana.