Mwanawasa Aide Defends KCM Sale Former Special Assistant to late President Levy Mwanawasa in charge of Policy and Project Implementation, Jack Kalala has come to the defence of the late President by stating that he should not be blamed for the sale of Konkola Copper Mine (KCM) to Vedanta Resources for US$25 million. Speaking during a media briefing in Lusaka today, Kalala says the people who should be taken to be task at this point are those that removed the windfall tax, stating that the whole idea was to sale the mine, develop it and start getting back the money through windfall tax. Kalala says when President Mwanawasa became President; the country was experiencing serious social and economic challenges such as high poverty levels, high unemployment rates, high inflation rate and rampant corruption among other challenges. He says President Mwanawasa had to come up with ways of addressing these challenges, hence the decision to sale the mine and subsequently introduce windfall tax so that Zambians could benefit their mineral resources. Kalala stresses that Vendetta resources owner Anil Agarwal should not be condemned for mocking Zambians on how much he is making from the mines, but that Zambians should be grateful to him as this should be a wakeup call to Zambians on the need to reintroduce windfall tax. He says it is not Vendetta’s fault that Zambia is losing out, but that Zambians themselves who through their members of parliaments decided to remove windfall tax. And Kalala says Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda should resign on moral grounds or be fired by the President for putting the country in a mess. Source: Qfm zambiareports/2014/05/20/mwanawasa-aide-defends-kcm-sale/
Posted on: Tue, 20 May 2014 16:19:44 +0000
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