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Fourth
quarter 2007
Money secured to tackle pollution
A consortium of donors
pledges support
on waste
Zambia has secured US$50 million from a consortium of Western financiers
including the World Bank to clean up hazardous mining areas in the country
and protect thousands of people from poisoning.
The majority of the money is being provided by the World Bank, which has
given Zambia's Copperbelt Environmental Project (CEP), which
is running the clean up campaign, a US$21 million loan and a US$19 million
grant. The Nordic Development Fund (NDF), which promotes economic progress
in developing countries, has given US$10 million to the campaign. A large
part of the US$50 million will be used to clean up the Central Province
town of Kabwe, where lead levels remain critically high and are currently
believed to be threatening the lives of 60,000 people.
Kabwe was named the fourth most polluted place in the world last October
in a report by US think tank the Blacksmith Institute, after Chernobyl in
the Ukraine, Dzerzhinsk in Russia and Haina in the Dominican Republic.
Mining and smelting operations in Kabwe, which is rich in lead, were
running almost continuously up until 1994. But with smelting operations
unregulated at that time there was significant mine seepage.
The report found the lead content in the blood of Kabwe residents to be
often five to ten times above permissible levels in the US, with many
children also recording dangerously high contamination levels. Lead
poisoning can lead to vomiting, diarrhoea, muscle spasms and kidney
damage.
Joseph Makumba, an official at ZCCM Investments Holdings, which runs the
CEP, said the funds would be used to clean up waste and resettle people
living in hazardous areas like Kabwe around the Copperbelt.
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