FQM denies toilet meetings but it was the President who told the story.
One of the stranger footnotes in the Global Witness report is First Quantum Minerals flatly denies that its CEO Tristan Pascall, or any of its management, ever met Hichilema in the toilets at Johannesburg Airport.
The difficulty is who put the story into the public record. It was HH himself. Speaking last August at the commissioning of FQM’s Kansanshi expansion in Solwezi, HH recalled hiding at the airport during his opposition years and meeting, as he put it, in the toilet “to avoid being misunderstood.”
FQM’s answer, given to Global Witness, is that the President may have been speaking metaphorically, and that the meetings did not happen. As alibis go, it’s less airtight than the cubicle door.
Which leaves the FQM & HH disagreeing about HH’s own anecdote, which is an unusual place for two parties who claim they have nothing to hide to end up. The trouble with a shared secret is that both parties have to remember it the same way.