PF will cause war over Black Mountain – CK

Jerabos celebrate take over of Black Mountain

National Democratic Congress political consultant Chishimba Kambwili says President Edgar Lungu’s decision to give 10 per cent Black Mountain to Jerabos will cause war on the Copperbelt.

And Kambwili says Zambia is becoming a province of China.

Speaking when he featured on Radio Christian Voice’s Chatback program, Wednesday, Kambwili observed that there would be trouble identifying which part of Black Mountain belonged to Jerabos.

“I feel Sorry for my youths on the Copperbelt, for the Jerabos, I feel sorry for them. When did we start talking about giving the Black Mountain to the youth? When President Lungu thought he was very powerful and that he was very popular, he never bothered to give them. And by the way, he has not given them. He has only created more problems than the solution. You are going to see what is going to happen. How can you give 90 per cent of the Black Mountain to foreigners, Chinese and you give your own Zambians 10 per cent? You see, this country is becoming an extension of the Chinese, it has become an extension. Everything in this country now is Chinese. all the major contracts are Chinese, prime land is going to Chinese now you even go and get a Black Mountain, people may not know what this Black Mountain is, this Black Mountain is a residue, the waste from he smelting from copper…then you go and give it to the Chinese to exploit it when your own people, the Zambians want to exploit it?” Kambwili asked.

“You don’t know those boys, I know those boys very well, the Jerabos. Wait and see what is going to happen at that mountain. Wait and see what is going to happen.The way to go over that mountain, remove those Chinese, Nkana Alloy. In any case, Nkana Alloy bought that mountain illegally. What happened was that Chambeshi Metals who were the original owners of that mountain, failed to extract the copper and abandoned it. And now that there has been this influx of the Chinese, they went and approached Chambeshi metals to say we can buy that mountain because we have a way of extracting copper from it. Now at the time that they went to see the minister, their license had expired. And that time, the youths, the Zambians, had already shown interest to take over the mountain. The minister at that time, made a mistake and renewed that license outside the legal time and gave the Black Mountain to this Nkana Alloy, outside the provisions of the law. What this government should have done was to have these Chinese out of Black Mountain and give it to the people of Zambia. There will be war in identifying which one is 10 per cent and which one is 90 per cent. The way the Black Mountain is structured is that there are areas where there is better quality and there is an area which is completely useless. If you have to go for 10 per cent, it simply means you have to go and maybe probably divide the mountain and say ‘this is 10 per cent, you Jerabos will be mining here. Now if they give them an area which is useless, they will force themselves to go to the 90 per cent and war will erupt. They have not sorted out the problem.”

He charged that a former president and a senior official in the current regime had pocketed millions of dollars from Nkana Alloy to secure their ownership of Black Mountain.

“All President Lungu is doing is to try and win the hearts of those youths but I can rest assure him that there is don’t kubeba. The youths know, they are not happy but they are saying instead of having nothing, let us just have that 10 per cent. But they are not happy. All they need to do is to take those Chinese out but we know that the former president pocketed US$5 million from Nkana Alloy and there is another one, I don’t want to mention the position, who has pocketed US$3 million from Nkana Alloy and that’s why they are failing to remove Nkana Alloy and leave it to the people of Zambia. These are not allegations, they are facts. One of the lawyers has even got a recording where these Chinese made a disclosure that we can’t lose this Black Mountain because we gave the former president five million and we gave someone in this government US$3 million. There is a recording,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Roan Member of Parliament said the Patriotic Front needs him more than he needs them.

“The PF needs me more in Roan than I need them, not only in Roan, the whole country, the PF needs me more that I need them and that a fact. I can tell you that if a by-election was called in Roan, I can remain sleeping for the rest of the campaign time, and they can never win that seat,” said Kambwili.