Displaying items by tag: Zambia

Zambia: Two Italian managers working for Zambezi Portland Cement have had their residence permits revoked by the Zambian Immigration Department. Operations director Danielle Ventriglia and marketing director Valerio Ventriglia have both returned to Italy.

Home Affairs Minister Edgar Lungu denied that the managers had been deported. He stated that their residence permits had been revoked and consequently cancelled because the two directors based in Ndola had violated the Immigration and Deportation Act No 18 of 2010. Lungu said the government would deal with people who 'mistreat' Zambian workers and was determined to cleanse all institutions by uprooting 'bad elements'.

Zambezi Portland Cement Operations manager Mwamba Kayula appealed to the government to reverse the decision, saying that Ventriglia was behind the success of Zambezi Portland Cement. "This man has been operations director for the past two years, he was born in Luanshya and we still need to continue with his good work at the company," said Kayula.

Zambia: Work on the construction of a new US$500m Dangote Cement plant in the Masaiti District of Zambia is progressing well and will be completed on schedule, according to company logistics manager Kampew Nundwe. The 1.5Mt/yr plant will be the largest in the country when it reaches its full capacity in 2013.

The plant is expected to create more than 1500 direct and indirect jobs during the construction and operational phases. "At the construction stage, 500 casual workers will be employed and up to 1000 people will be employed when full operations start," said Nundwe.

Nundwe said that the Chinese contractor working on the project has completed construction of temporary offices would soon be moving to the main construction site, with 80 trucks carrying materials from Germany and China scheduled to arrive from 15 February 2012 onwards.

Zambia: The Zambian Environment Management Agency (ZEMA) has ordered Ndola Lime Company to shut down its plant, which has caused public outcry by releasing dust emissions higher than the lawful allowable limits. ZEMA's northern region manager Patson Zulu said that ZEMA had revoked the plant's license for its rotary kiln.

"The complaints from some Ndola residents about excessive dust emissions are justified." said Zulu. "At ZEMA, we have no option than to act accordingly. The onus is now on Ndola Lime to see to it that measures are put in place to comply with the country's environmental laws." Zulu warned other companies breaching the regulations, which are believed to include Lafarge operations, that they also risked being shut down. "People should be allowed to enjoy a good quality of life by having air which is not polluted. We shall no longer tolerate environmental mischief," he said.

Ndola Lime's acting general manager Abraham Witika confirmed that his company was failing to meet the lawful allowable dust emission standards because its kiln's dust abetment unit had developed a fault." Ndola Lime Company has already done an assessment on the damaged abatement unit that is responsible for regulating the levels of dust emission and the process to order the replacement has started," he said, adding that it was unfortunate that the plant had developed a fault despite having only having had the dust abetment unit replaced (at a cost of USD 3.5m) in August 2010.