Mines Minister Richard Musukwa says China must not be disadvantaged in the planned sale of Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) because of negative public sentiments being peddled against Chinese investment.

And Musukwa has disclosed that bid documents for the sale of KCM have just been approved by the legal affairs team.

Meanwhile, Musukwa says it is surprising that Vedanta Resources is using international news media to claim that it had been treating the people of Chingola and Chililabombwe well, when all it did was subject people to inhumane conditions the whole time it was in charge of KCM.

Speaking when he featured on ZNBC’s Sunday Interview, Musukwa said government would not be coerced into surrendering KCM to an entity with ulterior motives, but insisted that China’s relationship with Zambia should also not disadvantage Chinese companies from expressing interest in taking over KCM.

“Government will not be coerced into any ulterior motives, which are meant to disadvantage Zambians. This process will be done in an open and transparent manner and doing so, we will not sit at the fence to discourage other entities. In short, China must not be disadvantaged as a result of these negative perceptions regarding the cancellation of debt. What we want, as government, is an entity that will be able to revive the operations at KCM. We are not looking at the nationality or colour or anything of that sort. What we are looking for is a company that should be able to mirror into our standard, which we have put across and certainly, we will not fall prey to such kind of manoeuvres,” Musukwa said.

He revealed that bid documents for the sale of KCM had only just been approved by the legal affairs team.

“KCM has not been sold to any entity at the moment and China included. The process hasn’t even started, the bid documents have just been approved by the legal affairs team. So, where we are sitting is that we haven’t even started the process. But what we need is a company that has the capacity to run KCM and any company that will be chosen should be able to ensure that they fit in the structure of government,” he explained.

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