KK v FTJ v LPM v RB (Revisited)

The recent death of President Chiluba, which has so far be characterised by ridiculous hypocrisy and shallow and dishonesty appraisal of his presidency, provides a good opportunity to share an old piece - KK v FTJ v LPM v RB.

The NAREP Vision

NAREP's Elias Chipimo makes the case for a different vision for Zambia.

A Tragic Tale of Injustice

A recent monthly essay chronicled the poverty of Zambian justice. This news story is yet another tragic tale of the current injustice in the "justice system" : 

Detained for 7 years but innocent, Brina Manenga, The Post, News Report :

One one evening of January 2003, Raphael Nondo was arrested and labeled a dangerous criminal. And for the next seven years the life of the 58-year-old retired soldier was a living hell. He was arrested, detained, tortured and subsequently released after the Director of Public Prosecutions entered a nolle prosequi – seven years later. Nondo relieves the trauma of his ordeal.

Zambia's Iron Lady

I am aware that there is a scheme to remove me and give my position to the preferred losing candidate. Am also aware that there are schemes to frame fake charges against me to pave way for a vacancy so that the preferred candidate takes over. I know about all these schemes meant to destroy and scandalise me in the public eyes.

I have therefore decided to quit to make your work easy by giving you advance notice of my termination of my membership so that I help you reduce unnecessary costs of stage-managed attacks on my integrity in your government-controlled TV and newspapers. Maybe the abuse of public resources and government media can be reduced since I will no longer be a factor. And maybe you can channel the resources to needy social areas instead of paying cadres to insult me. Please advise the President against bringing innocent institutional officers in politics.

You can read the rest of Masebo's powerful resignation letter via The Post. One is hard pressed to remember the last time a Zambian female politician expressed herself so powerfully and eloquently. The days of the chitenge dancing women must surely come to an end. For all their worship of male politicians, Zambian women continue to be victimised and the alleged hatred of Masebo by the President and his friends must surely be seen in that general cultural context. The struggle against victimisation is one women must lead for themselves and with the likes of Masebo in the forefront, there's reason to hope. 

The only technical correction to make is that the government papers and television are not "government controlled", they are MMD controlled.  Government is made up of three branches - Executive, Legislature and Judiciary. The papers and television in question are puppets of the Executive Branch (although our thoughts of poverty of the judiciary are well established).

Laws are not enough!

Col Panji on tackling corruption:

“I hope our leaders held their heads in shame [when Clinton visited]. That message was for them. That message from Hilary, I am sure, was for them. Corruption is an issue in this country. I want to see the coming government putting in place laws that deter corruption...The sentences we give to those who are corrupt are not too serious. They can serve three years and come back and continue to loot what they stole. We should have, let’s say 20 years in jail without parole.”

The Colonel means well but he is starting from the wrong point. The problem is not that we don't have strong laws, but simply that people are not prosecuted and successfully convicted. A new government would need to solve the "prosecution" problem before it looks to tougher laws. The current approach to sentencing and prosecution of corruption is costly to the tax payer. It is long and by the time cases are done people serve short sentences. For justice to work, it is critical that people are not just punished but are seen to be punished.

We need a new judicial process for convicting corrupt criminals, that is swift and definite (I have previously suggested "special corruption courts" - and PF have hinted at this). No point of having long prison sentences, if you cannot actually convict people efficiently and at minimal cost to the tax payer. In fact I would say that a corruption fight without an efficient court system has little deterrent effect on corruption - and is therefore a pure social cost. While we are sorting out the courts, we should also examine whether the burden of proof in cases involving corruption ought to be reduced.

Welcome competition

The PF Vice President Guy Scott has a new blog. This will hopefully drive all the rude MMD cadres who complain and constantly leave insults to his blog. 

Is our education to blame for having a poor government?

Italian economists Fortunato & Panizza provide new evidence that democratic institutions work well only when the electorate is sufficiently educated. Democratic elections do not help (may even possibly harm) the recruitment of a competent and honest political elite in countries with largely uneducated populations. This seems to make perfect sense. Though information and electoral fair play are important, the voter needs to be able to digest the data and make rational choices. My only quibble is that it would be good to this relationship tested for the type of electoral and political systems. I suspect education may be more important in certain systems. I also wonder whether "education" is simply a proximate for some deeper e.g. local power? In rural areas for example its quite clear the uneducated  largely vote for under performing governments - not necessarily because they are less "rational" or less "informed", but because they have little power - they may be culturally coerced. The implications of these questions are immense (e.g. do some governments deliberately under-educate their people to stay in power?) :

Democracy, quality of government, and the average voter, Piergiuseppe Fortunato & Ugo Panizza, VoX EU, Commentary :

The standard efficiency argument in favour of democracy is based on the idea that free elections are an effective instrument for ousting inept and corrupt politicians (e.g. Sen 2000). This view, however, is based on the assumptions that voters are capable of monitoring and evaluating government actions.

The ability of monitoring elected officials, in turn, depends on the availability of high quality information about the actions of these officials. A recent literature finds that increased media presence improves electoral accountability (Besley and Burgess 2002) and that better rules and practices of disclosure by politicians are associated with lower corruption (Djankov et al. 2010).

At The Mercy of Big Business, 2nd Edition

Bob Sichinga on the "unholy alliance" between the party in government and mining companies :

“My information is as follows; this money is not coming from the capital market. This money has come from the mines, who they have refused to tax. And this is the deal between the government and the mines that they will pay to MMD some money which they can then use for their campaign, with a view of them being retained in government...Because if the mines should not support the MMD and allow a new government to come in, a new government is likely to tax the mines with proper taxes, on mineral royalty taxes as well as windfall tax, as well as income tax....There is also a separate deal which they have done to give money to MMD to enable them campaign. That’s why MMD is flashing this money all over the place. It has come from the mines...Why not make the mines just pay a fair tax? This is betrayal and this is why I have said ‘let the people decide in this election and make the issue of the mine taxes as an issue in this campaign..”

It should be noted in the interest of fairness that Mr Sichinga is currently an economic advisor to the Patriotic Front. But the allegation he makes are well established because President Banda has actually admitted as much in the past - see At The Mercy of Big Business and the implications it raises.  

Is Zambia Heading for Another Debt Crisis?

Insightful observations from the JCTR. Zambia's "winner takes all" election syndrome is threatening a mounting fiscal and debt crisis as the current administration abandon any shred of prudence and circumvent established spending commitments to spend all to stay in power. The MMD appears keen to sacrifice national finances at the electoral altar.  What is clear is that whoever wins these elections may well inherit large fiscal deficit unless there's renewed goodwill from the donor community to mend the fences. I suppose if there's any  excuse for MMD is that it may be responding to higher spending commitments from the PF, which may have created an "arms race" effect or "race to the bottom" of common sense. In truth, I think it is the credible threat of a likely electoral defeat that is leading to these problems. When are our politicians going to govern for the long term and not the immediate security of their offices? 

Is Another Debt Crisis Looming? Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR), Press Statement, 08 June 2011 :

While spending K1.3 trillion (approximately 6% of 2011 budget) on road works for Kitwe and Lusaka as was recently announced by the President is a welcome move, the mode of financing these works is of great concern, says JCTR. Since the K3.1 trillion road allocations in the 2011 national budget did not initially include these new road projects but others such as Mongu-Kalabo road, Siavonga – Sinazongwe road etc; government will have to borrow or reallocate resources from other priority arrears to complete these new projects. Even though government is saying these projects will be financed by mining tax arrears and loans, the K555 billion tax arrears and the foreign and domestic loans of 2% and 1.4% of GDP respectively, provided for in the 2011 budget are not sufficient to pay for these mega trillion projects. Government will therefore have to borrow beyond the budgetary ceilings which will certainly exacerbate the Country’s debt burden that lately has been on the increase.

A Costly Harvest

A half-billion dollar reason fromZAMACE's Brian Tembo on why you may not want to celebrate the bumper harvest just yet :

"The projected K2 trillion, expected to be spent on the close to two million tonnes from small-scale farmers, is above the budgeted K1.23 trillion allocated to the agriculture sector in the national budget.....But can the country sustain this kind of expenditure?...Whichever way you look at it, for the government to continue subsidising production and purchases, the US$400 million deprives the citizens of the much needed services and also goes to subsidise the region as we will store and sell at lower prices for the benefit of the region. There is a problem with this sort of business model. The other key issue is that the majority of the maize is smallholder grown and there are therefore quality concerns discounting our maize price on the international market further......

When it’s time to export, when you factor in the storage and transport and finance charges, we shall effectively sell our maize at a loss. The point is that the country only expects to consume 1.3 million tonnes of this commodity and we have carryover stocks from last season of over 800,000 tonnes and a bumper crop of three million tonnes! So the surplus will therefore be exported...The traditional destination is Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe will not buy maize until their lean season around September. So factor in storage and also note that they will not just look at Zambia but Malawi (cheaper source) and South Africa (much cheaper source). For export add a differential of about $60 to our price....."

We have previously touched on Zambia's broken maize marketing policies. Not sure when this madness will end but good to see Mr Tembo standing up for common sense. 

The Media Is Wasting Your Money

"It is a shame the way the public media is being used by the MMD. The people of Zambia are even made to pay K3,000 per month, for what? That is why people have now shunned watching ZNBC because it is all government propaganda....Zambians have an ownership of the public media because they are taxpayers to these institutions. ZNBC promised that it will accord equal airtime to all political parties but we have not seen that happening. What we see are documentaries of the MMD...We cannot say anything about the private media because we do not know your editorial policies. We do not pay anything to you people...However, the public media is owned by Zambians, they have an ownership. What the public media is doing is wasting your money and my money."

AVAP's Bonnie Tembo on what the public media is doing with your money. The contradiction of MMD's privatisation programme is that it has not sold those things that are genuinely financially bankrupt like Daily Mail - which every Zambian wants them to. More extensive thoughts on the media can be found in our monthly essay - Zambian Media as Agents of Poverty. 

The Scramble for Africa

A fascinating historical documentary on the "Scramble for Africa" - old & new.

Who will help the Zambians?

Khadija Sharife asks in this striking assessment on the failure of the Zambian people to reap meaningful revenues from copper.  Despite the apparent 'success' of the privatisation of the copper industry, the true picture remains that of a helpless people facing an extraordinary league of corrupt politicians and predatory multinationals, which has seen national assets sold 'for a song' and persistent tax dodging .

Copper in Zambia: Charity for multinationals, Khadija Sharife, Pambazuka News, Commentary :

During the 1970s, Zambia was one of the world's leading copper producers, extracting over 700,000 tonnes per annum. These days, Zambia leads the ranks as a top copper producer at more than 800,000 tonnes (2010). Much of the success has been credited to the privatisation of the copper industry. It has been almost two decades since Zambia's ailing copper industry, beset by low commodity prices and skyrocketing debt, was privatised. The process was described by the New York Times in 1996 as, 'Westerniz[ing] the economy with a combination of help and arm-twisting from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the lead lenders for the $6.3 billion in external debt the country is carrying.'

Glencore on Fire! (Updated)

The European Investment Bank last week froze all new loans to Glencore and its subsidiaries citing "serious concerns" over the group's corporate governance. The primary reason relates to Mopani Copper Mines, a Zambian subsidiary of Swiss-based Glencore and its many tax evasion problems in Zambia. Mopani continues to be a subject of many allegations by active NGOs - most recently by campaign groups in an open letter signed by a group of European parliamentarians - of tax evasion and of causing widespread pollution.  The pressure on Glencore has been relentless since the leaked pilot audit report commissioned by Zambia Revenue Authority. 

Zambian Economist received many threats (alongside the usual abuse) regarding this issue to the extent that that we had to withdraw much of the information. It is good to see the EIB taking a serious look at this. Such a shame that European institutions should care more about how companies behave than our own government. Equally shameful than many Zambians seem content at such abuses and it takes the work of foreign NGOs to come to our aid (text corrected below). When are we going to stop being intellectual and economic infants? When will Zambians actually start standing up for themselves? 

More detail on this via Reuters.

Correction (7 June) :

In the note above, I suggested that this was entirely a western led venture. I have been rightly corrected that this is not the case. The Centre for Trade Policy and Development - a Zambian NGO has been heavily involved in pushing pressure alongside EU based NGO. They have been involved  in knowledge building and advocacy activities on matters of matters of tax justice and deserve much credit. You can read about their activities on this issue here.  For further information see the CTPD website http://www.ctpd.org.zm/ . We hope that many Zambians can get on board and start supporting them. 

Getting Better, By Charles Kenny (A Review)

Getting Better, Charles Kenny

A Zambian Economist Review 

The economics of underdevelopment is big business. Books increasingly litter our shelves advising donors and poor governments alike on the best way to address the blight of global poverty. It is usually the case that the more negative and radical the message, the more the book sells. In recent memory we have become accustomed to negative views of the current state of global development, perhaps best exemplified by such pejorative phrases as “bottom billion”, “global south”, “new age primitivity” and, most recently ,“dead aid”. An underlying narrative in many of these books is that current development policies are not working and something more radical is needed. Some extreme voices have even urged aid freezes to break perpetual dependency on foreign aid. Charles Kenny’s Getting Better is a refreshing departure from the current pessimism and offers a more grounded perspective on global development. 

Debt Watch (China), 3rd Edition

China's Industrial and Commercial Bank (ICBC) recently announced a new loan to Zambia of around $285 million to the poorly run ZESCO. The funds are mean to support a new inter-connector to link Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya allegedly is intended to, wait for it, "boost mineral exploration, agriculture and tourism". The loan will be repaid over 20 years, with a five-year grace period. Construction of the power line will start in November 2011 and will be done by China's TBEA. China always insists on using its companies. More detail via Reuters.

Related Posts :

Debt Watch (China), 2nd Edition
Debt Watch (China)

A Poverty of Justice (Monthly Essay)

The June 2011 short essay discusses how Zambian judges are preventing the economic emancipation of our poorest people; and what must be done to turn things round. More information on the Monthly Essay project can be found here. We value your feedback and suggestions for future topics.

A Poverty of Zambian Justice