The Emerald and Semi Precious Stones Mining Association of Zambia (ESMAZ ) has unreservedly apologized to the Minister of Mines and Minerals Development over a malicious story.
The story came out of the daily nation newspaper of 3rd March 2023 with the headline “ EMERALD MINERS WANT KABUSWE DISMISSED”
Emerald president Victor Kalesha said that they have distanced themselves from that call because it is a malicious story coming out of poor journalism by the reporter who did the story.
“Our role as an association is not to work in harmony with the government of the day and help our line minister to perform. It Is regrettable that the newspaper decided to twist the innocent story and join it to a malicious story. It is unacceptable and very unprofessional by our journalist from Daily Nation taking a position reporting wrongly,” he said.
Mr Kalesha said the same statement was distributed to various media houses and never called for the dismissal of the minister.
“Our cry and call as small-scale miners, especially as emerald miners, is to have engagement with our minister in order to come up with a mechanism to awaken the sleeping giant in emerald mining. It Is unfortunate that now the Minister is refusing to meet us citing that I called him corrupt,” he said.
