Zambia must target mines for cash in 2024…to reduce poverty says Amb. Anthony Mukwita

Zambia must target mines for cash in 2024

…to reduce poverty says Amb. Anthony Mukwita on Millenium TV

03.01.24

Zambia must take steps to earn more money from foreign mining companies digging copper and other minerals in the country to grow the economy and reduce poverty says Ambassador Anthony Mukwita.

Ambassador Mukwita, in an interview aired live on Millenium TV on New Year’s day said the amount of money the foreign mining companies are externalising through alleged tax evasion and avoidance could easily reduce poverty in Zambia if only the government took bold steps to tax the mines fairly.

The figure of the money Zambia loses annually from scrupulous mining companies has been pegged at about $3billion by international trackers.

“We have a company like Vedanta that has failed to pay huge electricity bills to ZESCO, some banks and local suppliers billions of kwachas that could stimulate the economy, but they go scott- free…it boggles the mind why the government jumped back in bed with Vedanta given their bad record in Zambia,” said Ambassador Mukwita.

If the ´poisoned chalice´ Zambia-Vedanta deal goes through, ordinary poverty stricken Zambian tax-payers will pay the Vedanta debt on behalf of Vedanta but that remains to be seen.

Mukwita added that in 2024, the government of Zambia could also take deliberate steps and provide long term cheap financing for Zambians especially youth to create employment to feed neighbouring countries that are not as endowed as Zambians with water and fertile land so that they buy food from the southern African nation instead of countries such as Argentina and Brazil.

“It still shocks many pundits that we keep seeking and begging for $3billion from the IMF as debt when we can collect that money from the mines and expansion in agriculture through farming blocks,” said Mukwita.

Ambassador Mukwita also described as sad the fact that Zambians today are still dying in huge numbers from eradicable diseases such as cholera in Africa´s second largest producer of copper.
The full interview is available on the Millenium TV site and Facebook page.

Ambassador Anthony Mukwita is a published author, former diplomat, and international relations pundit.

An average Zambian survives in abject poverty according to the United Nations on about $1 per day for all basic needs while the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection or JCTR states that a family of six in Zambia needs about K10,000 per month to survive on basics alone such as salt, cooking oil and mealie without rent, a monthly pay of K4000.