By ALICE NACHILEMBE
Communities living in mining areas must benefit from their resources and the Zambian government must make it compulsory that a portion of earnings that companies make be directed towards developing local communities.
At present, community leaders and ordinary citizens feel that they are not benefitting from the extraction of natural resources in their areas.
A former Zambian parliamentarian, Chali Chilombo has said that mining communities should be a priority to benefit from Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) from mining houses operating within their regions.
Mr Chilombo, a former Nchanga Member of Parliament argues that communities are not benefit from Zambian natural resources.
Nchanga constituency is one of the 156 constituencies in the southern African country and it is host to one of biggest mine in the world, the Konkola Copper Mines (KCM).
Communities living in mining areas must not only benefit economically, and mining companies must make sure that they make the environment safe for the communities, Mr Chilombo said.
Zambia is one of the top 10 biggest producers of copper in the world, which is also the country top mineral export with Konkola Copper mine, Mopani Copper mine, Kansanshi and Kalumbila Copper mine.
Communities were being disadvantaged by lack of regulations on how mining companies must support them as there is no law directing them to support communities leaving it to the discretion of the investors, he said.
Nchanga constituency has not had any significant development in years, save for come cosmetic support given to communities by mining companies to appear as if they are doing something good, he said.
There are growing calls for increased transparency and auditing of copper production figures to ensure that the government and communities are not short changed.
“There is a lot of cheating from the mines as they will only make up figures during auditing, that’s the more reason why government should just be the ones to audit the production of Copper,” he alleged.
And a Chingola resident, Arthur Teleshi said mining companies must be obligated invest more in corporate social responsibility, and to take care of the environment which is damaged due to their activities.
Mr Teleshi said Chingola used to benefit a lot from CSR before the mines were privatized into foreign hands.
ZCCM-IH investment used to run all Zambian mines before privatization in the early 1990s.
“Now that the biggest mining firms are run by foreigners, for us to benefit fully from CSR and return Chingola to its past glory, some portions of CSR should not be left to run merely like charities where the mine owners can decide to give back to the communities or decide not to, without any consequence. It should be made law embedded into our mining policy for these mining firms to give back to the communities they operate in, if it’s not made law we’ll not see any meaningful impact of CSR in our communities,” he said.
Another Chingola resident Humphrey Kabwe said communities should have some sought of power to decide what king of projects or programmes they want done through CSR.
Mr Kabwe said that government should ensure mining industries pay correct taxes and give contracts to local suppliers and contractors.
He said economically Chingola communities have benefited little from the mining companies as few and less economic contracts are given to local contractors and suppliers while large contracts are given to foreign contractors and suppliers.
“Government should change the laws by increasing shareholding in mining companies. At least 40%, Government on the annual basis should lists projects that an investor should be doing in a community in which it is operating,” he said.
Konkola Mine did not respond to queries on its CSR programmes.
