Mines audit ill-timed – ActionAid

ActionAid Country Director Pamela Chisanga says the decision by government to conduct a forensic audit on mining companies to ascertain the impact of low copper prices and power deficit on their operations is ill-timed.

Ms Chisanga has told QFM News via telephone that her organization had some time back advised government to conduct a forensic audit on mining firms to establish how much they were making in terms of profits, but that the advice fell on deaf ears.

Ms Chisanga says it is too late now to conduct such an exercise considering that the country is already in a crisis.

She says carrying out such an undertaking now will not yield any positive results, adding that the outcome of the audit at this point will only indicate the real position in the mining sector.

She says government should have conducted the audit at the time her organisation called for such an undertaking and not wait when things have turned sour resulting in thousands of miners losing jobs.

Ms Chisanga says conducting a forensic audit of the mines now will be a mere academic exercise given the situation in the mining sector.