First Mining Drc-Zambia July/Aug 2019 First Mining DRC-ZAMBIA July-August 2019 digital | Page 9

NEWS
South African court blocks
liquidation of Vedanta’s KCM
company in Zambia
A
South African blocked the
liquidation of Vedanta Resources’
Konkola Copper mines (KCM)
company in Zambia. This is amid a
growing dispute with the government in
Lusaka. As such, the Johanneburg High
Court ruling sets Vedanta Resources on
a collision course with President Edgar
Lungu, who has vowed to find new
investors for the strategic mine.
KCM, Zambia’s largest copper mining
firm, has been at the centre of a standoff
between Vedanta Resources, its
majority owner, and Zambia’s President
Edgar Lungu as at early this year.
The Indian-founded company, which
owns an 80% stake in the Konkola
Copper Mines (KCM), had filed for
a restriction with the Johannesburg
arbitration tribunal seeking to block
Zambia’s appointment of a liquidator to
wind up Vedanta’s operations.
According to media reports, the court
ruling serves to validate Vedanta’s plea
that the Consolidated Copper Mines
Limited Investment Holdings, (ZCCM-IH)
representing Zambia in the matter, had
breached articles of the shareholders’
agreement on winding up operations.
The High Court also ordered the ZCCM-
IH to pay Vedanta’s legal costs for three
lawyers who applied for the interdict.
Zambia which owns just 20 percent of
shares in the KCM, has been locked in
a dispute with Vedanta, over the alleged
abuse of its mining license since May.
According to Chibanda Kenyama, a
Zambian economist based in Lusaka,
Vedanta’s failure to develop the Konkola
dip was evident in the serious liquidity
problems it faced from overdrafts
contracted from commercial banks to
years of overdue suppliers’ payments.
www.fmdrc-Zambia.com
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