Asian Children Suffering from LEAD POISONING Due to Years of ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION

• published: 20 Feb 2014
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Asian Children Suffering from LEAD POISONING Due to Years of ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION London-listed miner Kazakhmys' ties to a toxic lead plant in its home country are under scrutiny again, in the light of new evidence. The revelations are set to spark questions from MPs on the Business Select Committee, who are looking into the effect of the City of London rolling out the welcome mat to foreign natural resources firms with operations in far-flung countries. The firm has always denied links to the smelter in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, where environmental surveys show dangerous concentrations of lead in the soil and air. The company has stuck to its guns, even after the Mail unearthed footage in 2012 from a local TV channel in which senior Kazakhmys staff celebrated the reopening of the plant after a shutdown. But fresh documents, due to be used in a documentary airing tonight on news channel Al Jazeera English, will cast further doubt on Kazakhmys' attempts to distance itself from Shymkent. The smelter is operated by a company called A-Mega Trading. While Kazakhmys admits supplying the smelter with lead dust for a brief period, it has stopped doing so and says it never had operational or financial ties to A-Mega Trading. But documents obtained from the Kazakh version of Companies House show that A-Mega Trading is registered at an office in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The building is owned by Vertex Holding, which lists its general director as Vladimir Jumanbayev. Jumanbayev is also employed as a 'commercial director' of Kazakhmys, while the firm has its own office in the same building. Hidden camera footage used in the documentary shows A-Mega Trading employees denying ties to Kazakhmys. But one of the employees concedes that she used to work for Jumanbayev's firm Vertex Holding. The emergence of previously unknown links between the companies builds on evidence obtained in 2012 by the Daily Mail. Local TV footage showed Kazakhmys head of copper Edward Ogay and Yerzhan Ospanov celebrating the reopening of the plant. Ospanov said the owner of the plant, a firm called Yuzh Poli Metal, had handed over operational control and that Kazakhmys was taking over the smelter. 'Kazakhmys will take over operational management of production and financial activities in order to avoid production losses and to maximise profit,' he said. If Kazakhmys does control A-Mega Trading, or has gained any financial benefit from it, it should have disclosed this in its annual report -- but A-Mega Trading does not appear in any of the firm's regulatory filings or reports. The Companies Act 2006 also requires disclosure of any potential environmental liabilities that could affect shareholders' investment. This is particularly important in circumstances where a company risks a lawsuit on behalf of multiple people. Tests by the International Task Force for Children's Environmental Health found that 96 per cent of children in the vicinity of the smelter displayed a form of lead poisoning. The Al Jazeera documentary also features children with developmental difficulties that a lead poisoning specialist says could be caused by emissions from the smelter. Kazakhmys says it has never performed an environmental assessment on Shymkent because it 'has never owned or operated the plant'. The firm added it only supplied lead dust to the plant briefly, at the government's request, 'in order to support employment'. Kazakhmys also insists it is constantly updating its environmental plans and has spent £180m to reduce pollution. Campaign group Global Witness said Kazakhmys' explanation of its involvement in Shymkent was unsatisfactory. 'British investors in Kazakhmys plc need to know whether the company could be held liable for any pollution caused by the smelter,' said campaigner Tom Mayne. The Financial Reporting Council has been handed a dossier of information about Kazakhmys' alleged links to A-Mega Trading. The regulator said it had 'not commenced an investigation under its disciplinary scheme in connection with Kazakhmys', although it did not say whether it was looking at the evidence. MPs on the Business Select Committee are expected to discuss the company's links to Shymkent at a meeting next week. The committee has been looking into the City of London's relationship with foreign-owned natural resource firms. Mining firms that have sought the prestige and liquidity afforded by a London listing have recently been under the microscope, including war-torn coal miner Bumi (now renamed Asia Resource Minerals) and Kazakh copper miner ENRC, which has since delisted. Germany "abc news" "cnn news" "fox news" "nbc news" "political news" "ap news" "bbc news" "rt news" "barack obama" 2/19/2014 19/2/2014 lead poisoning children suffer environmental pollution Kazakhmys owned 26 per cent of ENRC until it sold up last year, following allegations of corruption and a Serious Fraud Office probe.