PREVIEW
February incident led to more than 1 million tonnes of toxic waste spilling into Kafue River
President Hakainde Hichilema’s government has upped the ante in its dispute with Sino-Metals, demanding more compensation for a collapse at the dam that resulted in more than one million tonnes of toxic waste spilling into Kafue River.
In the aftermath of the February incident at the dam that held waste from the Leach Zambia copper mine, Sino-Metals promised to compensate affected communities but its initial offer of US$580,000 was meagre and many locals say that they have not received anything.
‘If the damage to the land and livelihoods proves to be more extensive or long-lasting than initially understood, then further compensation will be necessary and it will be pursued,’ said Zambia's Vice-President Mutale Nalumango during a meeting with Sino-Metals on 10 September.
The compensation package ‘must be guided by a thorough and independent assessment,’ she added. The company, which has been a major player in Zambia’s copper sector for more than a decade, has not helped itself by initially reporting that 50,000 tonnes of waste material had spilled into waterways connected to the Kafue, close to Kitwe in northern Zambia.
That may have encouraged the government to underplay the effects of the spill on health and the local ecosystem. Drizit, a South Africa-based environmental firm contracted by Sino-Metals to investigate the incident, found that 1.5m tonnes of toxic material had been released. Sino-Metals has since sacked Drizit.
Local communities and civil society groups are still assessing the costs of the spill. Human Rights Watch said the acid pollution had ‘killed fish, burned maize and groundnut crops, and led to the deaths of livestock, wiping out livelihoods of local farmers’.
There have also been reports of residents being forced to sign away the right to make further compensation claims by Sino-Metals, which has already received demands for $420m(AAC Vol 5 No 1, Underground and under threat).
Activists are putting Zambia’s mining industry under greater scrutiny as investor interest in the sector grows. Vedanta Resources, the mining and energy company controlled by Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal, is considering listing its Zambian copper unit to raise the finance it promised to invest in its operations at Konkola Copper Mines as part of the deal struck with the government (Dispatches 6/5/2025, Vedanta tries to raise copper cash after Hichilema settled Konkola fight).
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