Impeccable sources in Chingola have told News Diggers! that the consultative meeting held to chart the way forward for the liquidation of Konkola Copper Mines, Monday, resolved to appoint some interim managers to run the various KCM business units.

According to sources, Konkola Mine in Chililabombwe will be run under the leadership of Dr Sixtus Mulenga, a mining geologist who served as KCM vice-president for Safety, Health, Environment and Quality when the mine was owned by Anglo American.

Dr Mulenga is also the Founder and Executive Chairman of Tasheni Mining and Engineering Solutions Ltd and serves on various boards of international stock exchange listed companies operating in Zambia.

Also appointed in charge of Nchanga Open Pits is Gilbert Temba, a Bank of Zambia board member and analyst who has been offering consultation services to the Ministry of Mines on the operations of Konkola Copper Mines.

“There are some old timers who have been co-opted into the interim committee which is working with the Economics Association of Zambia (EAZ) and others to put an interim management in place to run KCM affairs. We don’t know yet who the overall CEO will be, but we are told that Konkola Mine in Chililabombwe will be run by Dr Sixtus Mulenga and Nchanga Open Pits by Gilbert Temba. This is what we got as one of the outcomes of the morning consultative meeting,” said the source.

The sources said the KCM liquidation advisory committee was expected to conclude its business within the next 30 days.

“Government has set up a committee to work with the appointed provisional liquidator of KCM in the interim, and so far, this committee has been told to wind up KCM by the end of June 2019. Within this month, they are expected to settle the outstanding liabilities of the company, hoping Vedanta would not have taken this matter for international arbitration by then,” said the sources.

“There is also a retrenchment move by the liquidator where they are forcing employees who had leave days to apply for annual leave and exhaust their days. This is aimed at cutting down the labour force claims as the company is winded up.”