UNFORTUNATE DEATH

IT is clear that operations at the Black Mountain in Kitwe are not as smooth as the authorities would want the public to believe.

There are still teething issues which have not been clarified and to which the nation demands answers.

There is still no clear disclosure about the compo sition of the consortium supervising the operations at the Black Mountain. Not even the cooperatives and their membership have been disclosed.

This has left a large part of people feeling disad vantaged and the result are the accidents involving the tipper trucks and youths risking their lives to pil lage the chrome from the moving trucks.

These are the hundreds of youths from the sur rounding townships who have found themselves sidelined when they their interests and future should have been a priority.

The government has claimed that these chrome pickers have been catered for as there are four dump sites where the slug from the Black Mountain is dumped for them to scavenge.

But even this arrangement has not been consis tent as there are days when the agreed deliveries are not followed.

This uncertainty has resulted in the death of one person who was run over by a truck carrying the chrome to one of the identified sites for the hand pickers.

The 18-year-old Chrome picker died on the spot after a rear left tyre of a loaded Shacman tipper truck ran over him near Greek Olive in Nkana West residential area in Kitwe when he fell from the truck which was moving from the mountain.

In fact, a number of Chrome pickers have been injured and admitted to Kitwe Teaching Hospital af ter being run over by Tipper trucks as they tried to jump on the moving trucks so that they pick up the Chrome before it is offloaded to the four identified sites.

Copperbelt Police Commissioner Sharon Cheelo Zulu confirmed the fatal accident in which Lombe Joshua died on the spot f Gandhi Circle in Chambishi.

Ms Zulu said the accident happened near Greek Olive in Nkana West when Lombe, tried to get on the moving truck so that he could pick up the Chrome, but fell from the truck and he was run over by a rear left tyre of the truck.

There must be something wrong with the opera tions at the Black Mountain if some people have to resort to jumping on moving trucks just to have a “piece of the cake.”

The unfortunate death of Lombe came just a few days after operations at the Black Mountain re sumed after four days being suspended on grounds that buyers had been slow in their payments and so the consortium would not continue supplying until all the outstanding payments or bills were cleared.

What is obvious is that a lot of people like Lombe have been left behind to scavenge from the scraps while the identity of those who reap millions are be hind the scenes because there is no transparency as to who the real beneficiaries are.