Zambia's mines privatisation drive backfires

As Botswana embarks on the envisaged privatisation of its major parastatal companies like Air Botswana, the country would do well to tread carefully to avoid pitfalls that have crippled Zambia's once thriving copper mining industry and thrown thousands of workers onto the streets, writes TERENCE MUSUKU

NDOLA: Mining is risky. Judged empirically, working in underground mining operations is more dangerous than hunting man-eating lions in the Chobe or any other national game reserve in the Southern African region.

Far more people - underground miners to be precise - get killed in underground accidents each year in Zambia, as elsewhere in the world, than those who get mauled by ravenous lions.

Editor's Comment
Human rights are sacred

It highlights the need to protect rights such as access to clean water, education, healthcare and freedom of expression.President Duma Boko, rightly honours past interventions from securing a dignified burial for Gaoberekwe Pitseng in the CKGR to promoting linguistic inclusion. Yet, they also expose a critical truth, that a nation cannot sustainably protect its people through ad hoc acts of compassion alone.It is time for both government and the...

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