'PETROL BILL COMING’
…State mulls law to protect resources and avoid confusions in sub sector
GOVERNMENT is to enact a Petroleum Act to regulate and oversee petroleum explorations, Minister of Mines and Mineral Development Richard Musukwa has said.
GOVERNMENT is to enact a Petroleum Act to regulate and oversee petroleum explorations, Minister of Mines and Mineral Development Richard Musukwa has said.
And climate change expert Isaiah Banda said it was unacceptable that the country was rich in resources but still remained poor, despite having other pressing economy issues that deserved to be addressed using the available resources.
“We can still make it as a country, what we need is political will and strong policies that ensure Zambia comes first,” he said.
Mr Banda who said Zambia was rich in natural resources, however, stated that this wealth should, however, translate into tangible benefits for the citizenry.
Unless corrective measures were taken, Mr Banda said, discoveries of resources that were aimed at changing the shape of the country would be ineffective, especially to the citizenry.
Mr Banda noted Zambia had had in place a number of policies and laws that govern and regulate issues of natural resource management in the country, but that implementation had remained a challenge.
But Mr Musukwa said oil explorations in various parts of the country are progressing well and investors involved had submitted periodic updates. Mr Musukwa said the act would ensure that there was total sanity in the sub sector.
In an exclusive interview yesterday, he said government wanted to ensure there was sanity unlike creating conflict in the sub sector.
“We want to come up with this act so that we don’t have confusion in the exploration of the oil like in other jurisdictions. The primary purpose of oil is not to bring conflict but to benefit our local people, especially the host communities,” he said. And Mr Musukwa said mining companies such as Mapula Energy and many others had issued periodic reports to government on how the explorations were going on.
“So far we have very progressive reports on the status of oil explorations in various blocks, Mr Musukwa said.
Mr Musukwa said in many blocks, the explorations had reached advanced stage. Meanwhile Mr Musukwa said the country would develop economically with the discoveries of oil and gold.
“We have now oil and gold, we are sitting on lucrative minerals and we must exploit them.
“What I can tell you ultimately is that Zambia has cooperative advantage in mineral exploration, now we have oil explorations, these are the ones we need to spend more time on and more resources,” Mr Musukwa said.