CCZ warns govt over ‘uranium’

CCZ warns govt over ‘uranium’
By Darious Kapembwa in Kitwe
Sun 05 Sep. 2010, 04:30 CAT

THE Christian Council of Zambia (CCZ) says uranium is a serious danger to mines without a stringent safety policy in place. And Kitwe’s Anglican Priest Fr Richard Luonde has said mineral resources were not a curse but poor management of these resources was.

The duo was speaking during a MISA-Zambia programme on Catholic-run Radio Icengelo under the topic ‘The extractive industry’ on Friday. CCZ member Evans Lubala said that uranium mining was a dangerous venture to start without taking into consideration the safety measures on the ordinary citizens.

“We are shocked by the way government is treating the uranium. There is no policy to safeguard the interests of the Zambian people. Which mother or father can start a family without a plan?” He asked.

“Uranium is ranked the world’s highly hazardous mineral and there is need to care of the dangerous factors before any contract to mine the mineral is signed.”

He said Uranium mining in Canada started in 1958 in an area called Elliot where 70 million examples of hazardous remains were still evident.

Lubala asked whether the government had toured the areas where Denson, a Canadian company intending to start uranium mining in the country, started operations to see for themselves what had been left behind.

And Fr Luonde said that the problems coming out of the mining sector were as a result authorities rushing to sign contracts.

“It’s not a curse to have minerals. The problem is that we rush to sign contracts. A contract is a legal document but you see, we sign low-grade contracts. Contracts are supposed to be high grade that benefits the owners of minerals, but we have a situation where things have been taken out of the country without anyone questioning,” he said.

Fr Luonde said Zambians will have to look back one day and ask themselves why they had done what they had done with the extractive industry.

“If there is any signs of corruption within the ministry that handles the extractive industry, it becomes very dangerous and Zambians must be very careful as long as the EITI Extractive Industry Transparency Index is government driven, nothing will come out of it,” said Fr Luonde.