By KENNEDY MUPESENI and MUSONDA MANGILASHI –
MINES Minister Christopher Yaluma has condemned repeated invasions of KCM operations by illegal miners called jerabos, whose conduct has been likened to warfare by the company’s CEO, Steven Din.
Mr Yaluma said he was appalled by the levels of lawlessness brazenly exhibited by the jerabos in their attacks on KCM operations at Nchanga Mine in Chingola, where he was told the mine was losing millions of dollars to illegal activities of the group.
“I have never seen such lawlessness in my life. This is unacceptable. More youths will die here…we will not allow this to continue,” Mr Yaluma said as he was taken on a tour of the mine yesterday and shown a number of areas that had been invaded by mobs of jerabos.
Mr Yaluma’s visit came two days after a jerabo was killed in clashes with police, the second such death in less than a week as police battled the growing menace that has caused anxiety in Chingola.

YALUMA

Responding to Mr Din’s concerns about the presence of illegal processing facilities in town, he promised the Government would shut down any such operations which he said were encouraging the activities of  jerabos by providing a market for stolen copper waste.
He said equipment would be confiscated from illegally set-up mining operations and urged unemployed youth, who make up the majority of jerabos, to organise themselves into cooperatives and start operating legally.
Mr Din said the current situation at the mine was like warfare.
“We are losing about US$ 1 million through illegal mining activities and vandalism of equipment which is a sad situation, but following the current happenings over the last two weeks, we are still doing auditing to come up with the actual figures,” he said.
And a leader of the jerabos in Chingola, Kabaso Mulenga, popularly known as Spax, has distanced his group from the attacks on KCM operations, saying in statement that the people invading the company’s premises were scrap metal dealers.
“The people raiding KCM are metal merchants known as scrap metal dealers and not Jerabos. Even the circumstances in which they were killed simply points to what they followed in KCM which is scrap metal,” he said.
Mr Mulenga said Jerabos were a law-abiding group.
“We enjoy satisfactory relations with the law enforcement agencies as we seek to prevent or resolve community conflict and tensions arising from actions, policies and practices taken by security personnel at KCM. And since we never take matters of the law into our own hands, will never engage in such vices,” he said.