Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg. File picture: Arnd Wiegmann Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg. File picture: Arnd Wiegmann
Lusaka - Zambian President Edgar Lungu said he won’t allow Glencore’s local unit to cut about 4 000 jobs and that the nation, which is Africa’s second-biggest copper producer, will find other investors to take over mining operations if the current owners have failed.
The company plans on suspending production at its Mopani Copper Mines unit for 18 months while it invests $950 million in building new shafts and upgrading plants amid copper prices near six-year lows.
The plan includes firing more than 4 000 employees, and a bigger number of contract workers.
Mopani should use the profits it made during times of high copper prices to sustain its workforce now, Lungu said in comments broadcast Tuesday on state-owned ZNBC TV, speaking in the local ChiBemba language.
If mining companies have failed to run their operations, government will find other investors to take over, he said.
Lungu made the remarks during a five-day tour of Copperbelt province, much of which he has spent talking to mining investors and worker unions as the industry faces its biggest crisis since 2009.
Falling metal prices and a power shortage have contributed to a 49 percent decline in the kwacha against the dollar this year, the biggest drop out of the 155 currencies tracked by Bloomberg globally.
BLOOMBERG