Emerald and Semi-Precious Stones Mining Association of Zambia is claiming for the dumpsite at Kagem Mine under the 25% shares government has in the emerald mine.
The association says this will empower the youths of Lufwanyama as it has been with the Black Mountain in Kitwe.
Association President Victor Kalesha tells Money FM News that the association has noted with gladness that some of the youths involved in the Black Mountain have started small businesses out of the gain at the dumpsite.
Mr. Kalesha says this is the kind of empowerment the association wants for the youth of Lufwanyama.
“As an association once given the dumpsite at Kagem, we will engage the youths who are unemployed to extract emeralds from the dumpsite. We also want to promise Kagem that in order not to flood their market, we will sell back to them every emerald taken from the dumpsite and we will educate the youths to engage in businesses like farming, timber, development minerals mining etc from the empowerment received from the dumpsite,” he said.
Mr. Kalesha has requested President Edgar Lungu to create interest in this area and meet the emerald miners to hear them out.
“The benefit of the association will be to raise funds to buy exploration equipment for its members in the gemstone sector,” said Mr. Kalesha.
He says the key issue is let Zambians start benefitting from its natural resources by involving them directly unlike just giving them peanut salaries.
“We also want to request the strengthening of security in the area because currently security in the area is to porous and our earlier suggestion to have an emerald township in Lufwanyama should be taken seriously so that we start allocating plots at an identified location in Lufwanyama,” he added.