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MUZ fears KCM’s continued outsourcing of labour By Mwila Ch
By Mwila Chansa in Kitwe
Wed 28 July 2010, 12:40 CAT [0 Reads, 0 Comment(s)]
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MINE workers Union of Zambia (MUZ) president Rayford Mbulu has observed that Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) is likely to continue outsourcing labour as long as there is no intervention from politicians.
Giving his thoughts on labour deputy minister Simon Kachimba’s visit to KCM on Monday, Mbulu expressed skepticism of any tangible results coming out of the meeting with KCM management because they appeared to have already made up their minds over outsourcing.
“First of all, it is good that he Kachimba took that initiative of meeting KCM management. For us as MUZ, it was our first time to attend that Zambianisation committee which is chaired by honourable Kachimba,” he said.
“But our impression of the meeting is that it is like we were discussing an issue on which decisions seem to have been made already. I think KCM has already made up their minds over outsourcing and that is not very acceptable to us.”
“I think we’ve not achieved anything because they KCM were simply justifying their decision to outsource. From the manner the meeting ended, it seems they will continue outsourcing,” he added.
Mbulu warned that if what was happening at KCM was left unchecked, it would spread to other mining firms and that this would greatly disadvantage Zambian professionals.
He said there was need for all stakeholders ranging from parliamentarians, civil society organizations and politicians to join hands in stopping the outsourcing at KCM.
“KCM has the largest number of expatriates in the mining sector. Mopani has been led by a Zambian Chief Executive Officer and he has run it so effectively so far. KCM has more than 135 expatriates while Mopani has about half that number but they are performing very well,” Mbulu said.
He said there was no need for KCM to hire expatriates in roles that could be performed by Zambians and further alleged that production had been going down since the expatriates came.
Mbulu wondered when a Zambian would ever be given the role of Chief Executive Officer at KCM and that the trend of bringing expatriates was very frustrating to Zambian university graduates.
He said MUZ would not shut their mouths over the issue of expatriates because they did not want the country to set a bad precedence.
Mbulu said Zambia had produced a lot of human resource personnel and that it was unthinkable for any firm to hire foreign human resource practitioners when there were plenty of qualified ones within Zambia.
He reiterated the need for serious political will to solve the problems at KCM.
And National Union of Miners and Allied Workers (NUMAW) president Mundia Sikufele described the meeting with Kachimba as good.
“We had the first meeting with KCM over outsourcing and we hope this is the first in the series of meetings we will have with them to try and deter them from outsourcing,” Sikufele said.
He said arising from the discussion, there was a promise that they would listen to stakeholders although there was no clear answer on the issue from KCM.
Sikufele was hopeful that something would be achieved over the issue of outsourcing.
On Monday, Kachimba met KCM management over growing concerns from stakeholders about KCM’s tendency to outsource almost all their operations.
During the meeting, Kachimba told KCM management to consider employing Zambians in all positions held by expatriates.
When contacted on Tuesday, KCM corporate affairs director Rahul Kharkar requested a press query before he could respond but by press time yesterday he had not replied to the query.