THE Ministry of Finance and National Planning says population growth has negatively affected the country’s benefits from the mining sector. Appearing before the Parliamentary Planning and Budgeting Committee, Tuesday, Ministry of Finance and National Planning Assistant Director, Akapelwa Imwiko, said Zambia’s copper production had remained around 700,000 metric tonnes from the 1970s to date. “On our target being three million metric tonnes, are we still likely to achieve that even with the challenges we’re facing? The answer is yes. We think three million metric tonnes is still attainable. What is most important to note is when you look at where our mining production is today, we’re hovering around 700,000 metric tonnes. This is literally the production that we were doing...