Africa-Press – Zambia. Former Ambassador to Ethiopia, Emmanuel Mwamba has called on the Zambian authorities to cancel the Agreement ZCCM-IH immediately has with GLENCORE PLC.
In a demand letter written to the Minister of Mines, Hon. Paul Chanda Kabuswe and copied to the Attorney General, Mr. Mwamba who is also a presidential aspirant, said following recent developments where GLENCORE has been found guilty in the USA, Britain and Brazil, the Zambian Government had a legitimate and legal right to cancel or void the sale contract it had with GLENCORE.
Mr Mwamba said the Supreme Court in Zambia in May 2020, found GLENCORE guilty of tax evasion and fined it $13million. He said with these malpractices, the Zambian authorities must have sanctioned GLENCORE heavily and forced it to exit from MOPANI Copper Mines.
Mr Mwamba said as global authorities closed in on GLENCORE, it began to exit from its global operations but forced Agreements that retained the lucrative marketing rights and that GLENCORE acted with deceitfulness and the contract must therefore be deemed null and void.
Mr Mwamba said Zambia must stop paying the $1.5billion and must repossess its marketing rights that were unfairly given to GLENCORE.
He said as the USA authorities have done, Zambia must fine GLENCORE with heavy penalties for its criminal conduct while it operated in Zambia.
This week Glencore finally faced up to allegations that it embarked on foreign bribery and market manipulation schemes on a grand scale. According to reports from the US, Glencore International AG (Glencore) and Glencore Ltd, both part of a multinational commodity trading and mining firm headquartered in Switzerland, each pleaded guilty and agreed to pay over $1.1-billion to resolve the government’s investigations into violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and a commodity price manipulation scheme.
According to the BBC, the UK’s Serious Fraud Office said it had exposed “profit-driven bribery and corruption” across Glencore Energy UK’s oil operations in five African nations, adding that the firm will find how much it must pay in fines at a sentencing in June, although the firm previously set aside $1.5bn to cover the investigations it faced in the UK, US and Brazil.
Glencore’s chairman said “unacceptable practices” had taken place in relation to the bribery charges it pleaded guilty to at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.
In the deal, ZCCM-IH will pay GLENCORE $1.5billion and the firm holds absolute and exclusive marketing rights to sale MOPANI Copper Mines production.
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