The Emerald and Semi-Precious Minerals Association of Zambia has officially written to Kagem Mine Limited demanding for an emerald dumpsite.
Last week the association appealed to the government, as it owns 25 percent of shares in Kagem, to consider asking the emerald mine to give its dumpsite to emerald small scale miners as it was done with the Black Mountain in Kitwe.
Association President Victor Kalesha has confirmed to Money FM News that his association has written to the mine to allow the Association to take over the management of the dumpsite as a way of empowering the unemployed youths of Lufwanyama.
Mr. Kalesha says the association is mindful that there are a lot of obstacles that may come the way to block the request such as Safety Measures, Flooding the market with emeralds and other related laws of the Republic of Zambia.
“We want to advise that we have trained safety officers in within our Association ranks who can handle the safety aspect. We are not going to go into the operation without the guidance of the mine safety department. We will make sure that safety is adhered to as a matter of priority to avoid the unfortunate incident that happened with our colleagues at the black mountains,” he said.
On the aspect of flooding the market with emerald extracted, Mr. Kalesha says the association has resolved that all emeralds extracted from the dumpsite are sold to Kagem Mining Limited itself at an agreed price.
He adds that his association will have to request for security representation from Kagem in this regard for the sake of transparence and making sure that all the emeralds find their way to Kagem.
“We will apply for the Presidential Empowerment Fund for the youths which we will use as startup capital for our operations. We will screen and batch these Youths in groups and we will have order in the way we are going to conduct operation to avoid any form of uncontrolled operation. As an Association, we think it’s high time we started thinking outside the box to provide solutions of survival for the people of Zambia and in this regard particular reference made to the Youth of Lufwanyama who are unemployed, said Mr. Kalesha.
He stated that the dumpsite has been in existence from the time Kagem Mining was owned by the Zambian Government and more of it when majority shareholding changed hands and the Agura group of companies was in control of Kagem.
He added that this means that Zambian have more claims to the dumpsite considering the fact that it once belonged to Zambians.