Opposition Green Party President Peter Sinkamba has called for the auditing of the Black Mountain mining operations. Mr. Sinkamba says auditing the operations will make it easy to tell the impact of the empowerment programme.
The opposition leader said in an interview that black mountain was a public resource and was hopeful that the office of the Auditor General will take keen interest by initiating an audit on the resource.
“The Auditor General’s office should not ignore the auditing of the ongoing mining operations at Kitwe’s Black Mountain in the forthcoming
auditing of the mining sector so that stakeholders can appreciate how proceeds from the resource are being used,” He said.
Currently it was difficult to tell the impact of the 30 per cent black mountain empowerment on the communities because there
is no evaluation system put in place.
The Black Mountain Empowerment initiative was just like other empowerment initiatives such as the Citizens Empowerment funds.
“So in terms of the black mountain you are talking about government having handed over a public resource to a group of youths to exploit
it and empower themselves, what has been given is not different from what government gives through the Citizens Economic Empowerment funds, except that through the citizen economic empowerment funds it is hard cash that is given to the youths,” He said.
He said there was need for the New Dawn government to ensure accountability on the mining activities at the black mountain if
people are to trust the regime.
But spokesperson for the Black Mountain mining Consortium Kangwa Kamando has welcomed the audit saying the consortium
has nothing to hide as it has managed the empowerment initiative as planned.
Mr. Kamando however said the audit should be extended to the other two times the black mountain empowerment initiative was carried out under the previous regime.
