Gécamines allowed artisanal miners to operate the mine, working in dangerous conditions for very low pay.

The complete 114.3 kilometres (71.0 mi) line from Jadotville via Kamatanda Junction and Tenke to Tshilongo opened on 15 July 1914.

[7] Sanga mines in the area between the Lufira and the Lualaba included Kamatanda, Likasi, Kambove, Msesa, Kalabi and Kakanda.

[12] A 1932 report described results of prospecting in the Kamatanda area with three wells of 20 metres (66 ft) depth, galleries and trenches.

In December 1966 he seized the assets of UMHK, and in January 1967 transferred them to a parastatal called Générale Congolaise des Minérais (Gecomin).

[20] A 2008 Bloomberg Markets report described the 2.5 square kilometres (0.97 sq mi) mine as an area of land in which pits and holes up to 25 metres (82 ft) deep had been dug by freelance men, women and children.

They used head torches and candles to see as they dug out ore from horizontal corridors using hammers and chisels, small shovels and pickaxes and bare hands.

[23] Saesscam, a state agency, charged the workers 18 cents per 110 pounds (50 kg) bag of ore.

[26] In February 2014 Martin Kobler, head of the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Monusco), visited the mine.

Kobler was told that the miners were producing about 8 tonnes of ore daily, fetching an average of $200 per ton.

Typical earnings are $4 per day, but workers have to pay over 50 cents to public officials or unions to enter the site.

This would be achieved by a new concentrator at the Kambove site, new electrical lines and an ore-crushing machine at the Kamatanda mine.

The crushed ore is fed to the Heap Leach Unit in Panda, then the copper-containing solution is taken to the electrolysis room at the Shituru Factories, where high-quality copper electrodes are produced.