Zambia will carry out regular audits at all mines to avoid license breaches as evidenced with the Vedanta unit Konkola Copper Mines (KCM), the country’s mining ministry announced on Thursday.
According to Zambian President, Edgar Lungu, the government planned to strip KCM of its mining license and introduce a new investor, owing to a number of license term breaches.
A court hearing has been scheduled for Friday, following a high court order this week that named a Zambian law firm as the liquidator to oversee KCM.
Vedanta says it will challenge the order, which was granted after an application by Zambian state-owned ZCCM-IH, a 20.6% stakeholder in KCM.
“Vedanta has serious concerns about the intentions of the applicants and the procedures that were followed by ZCCM-IH as a representative of government to obtain a provisional liquidation order on an ex-parte basis against KCM in an apparent misuse of the legal process to date”, it says.
