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Vedanta Resources and the Zambian government on Monday sealed an agreement that restores the Indian company’s ownership of Konkola Copper Mines (KCM), ending a protracted ownership battle that stifled investment.
Zambia’s Mines Minister Paul Kabuswe witnessed the signing of the agreement between state firm ZCCM-IH with Chris Griffith, Vedanta’s head of base metals, in Lusaka, officially handing the copper assets, which the state seized in 2019, back to Vedanta.
The agreement will lead to the re-appointment of the KCM board and withdrawal of all legal challenges that are in court, including removing a provisional liquidator who was in charge of the assets, Kabuswe said.
The government, which owns a 20% stake in KCM through ZCCM-IH, said in September it had reached an agreement to allow Vedanta to resume control of the mines and smelter after the company pledged to invest about $1.2 billion at the operations.
Billionaire Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta mounted numerous legal challenges, including suing Zambia at the arbitration court in London, to regain control of KCM after former president Edgar Lungu’s government orchestrated the seizure of the copper assets by forcing the operations into liquidation in May 2019.
While the Zambian administration accused the company of failing to invest to boost copper output, the forced takeover and the legal challenges stifled investments and nearly crippled operations.
The government wants KCM assets to “come back to life,” Kabuswe said, adding that Vedanta must repair strained relationships with the communities by honouring its investment pledges.
“You have to live by what you have told us (that) this is the investment that will be coming,” the minister said.
(By Chris Mfula and Felix Njini; Editing by David Evans, Jonathan Oatis and Barbara Lewis)
2 Comments
Kenny mutande
All my life I have lived in chingola where the company KCM is located the problem we have with this invested are
1 there is little social responsibility from the KCM to it’s community e.g sport ,health and road
2.the lowerest payed worker salaries are still the same inspite copper prices and profits going up
3 the company does not or does super little to support local contractors
4 the artical talked about increasing investiment but where spacifically …a lot of miners say machinery and work force which is true…but also KCM now has a large open pit which can be explored and I think this is where the minister of mines was pointing.
Kenny kalunga
We hope that vendata has come to restore investment in the Copperbelt that should not be biased to Government ideas but strictly business,political interference is the major contributor to the failiar of mining industry in Zambia thank.