We first got our exploration license in Petauke on 20th of June 2017, valid for a period of 4 years.
After exploring for 3 years, we defined our resource and we decided to apply for a small scale mining license in 2020.
From July 2020 we never got a response from the ministry, after numerous follow ups , we finally received a rejection letter in January, 2024 that was apparently written in 2023.
As we were aggrieved, we decided to appeal the decision made by the ministry to the minister, as the reasons for the rejection were not a true reflection. As we had valid documents including Zema decision letter.
We ended up suing the in the high court and the court granted an injunction and ordered the minister to determine our case.
After our appeal was successful in 2024 , we’ve been fighting battles with Samuel Maango, director of mines at the ministry. He said the Minister had no authority to intervene in our matter.
Even after availing court documents, and after having won our appeal, our tenement was never reinstated. The Cadastre official refused to obey a court order and a ministerial directive.
After protracted engagements, that yielded no results, we decided to sell our interests in the said tenement.
It is very disappointing that Cadastre officials would prioritize foreigners instead of a fellow citizen.
Given the aforementioned background, I wish to categorically refute and dismiss the misleading claims making rounds on social media. We were unfairly targeted by ministry officials, we had to sue the ministry to compel the Minister to determine our case.
We are the victims here and we would never engage in any form of extortion or illegality
James Chungu Jnr
Chita Lodges Ltd