MINING INDABA SET TO TACKLE ILLS
COPPERBELT Mining “Indaba” organising committee is optimistic that Government, mine owners and other stakeholders will come up with a concrete solution to the challenges the sector has been facing.
“Indaba” organizing committee chairperson Gerald Mutelo said he was confident that many problems in the mining sector would be solved because of the enthusiastic demonstrated by the stakeholders. The “indaba” would be held on Thursday next week in Kitwe to discuss main challenges the mining sector was facing. Participants would include Mineworkers Union of Zambia, National Union of Miners and Allied Workers, mine owners and other key stakeholders. Mr Mutelo stated that once the issues were solved, operations for many of the mines which were struggling would resume. He added that the mining sector should be revamped so that the economy of the country could grow thereby improving Zambians lives. Mining, he noted, was still the mainstay of Zambia’s economy hence more efforts were required to ensure that operations remained on track. “There is urgent need to revamp the mining sector for the Zambian economy to grow,” he said. He added that the mining sector had been a great source of income to the nation for many years, thus the need to find a sustainable solution to the issues in the sector. Mr Mutelo added that issues of shutting down operations, closed mines among many others were gravely affecting the economic growth of the country. He however noted that the mining sector was strong enough to pull through and get back on its fit as soon as possible. He therefore appealed to all stakeholders, mine owners and government to take the Indaba seriously.