ZAMBIA’S 45TH-YR INDEPENDENCE: WHERE WE’VE BEEN, WHERE WE ARE, AND WHERE WE’RE GOING

Dr. Kaela receiving a Governor's Leadership Award in 1962 from Sir Everlyn Hone - the last governor of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia)

Where we’re coming from

Almost half a century ago, in the Southern part of the Dark Continent of Africa – a country called Northern Rhodesia became politically liberated from the British imperialists. To be precise on October 24th, 1964 – exactly 45 years ago, ZAMBIA a name coined by Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe (SMK) was born.

Kenneth Kaunda (KK) led UNIP to achieve Zambia’s independence from United Kingdom, which had taken over the administration of the country from an imperialist Sir Cecil Rhodes’ British South African Company. Rhodes (from whose name Northern & Southern Rhodesia was named) had somehow obtained mining concessions in 1889 from King Lewanika of the Barotseland (The Lozis).

With the help of nationalists like: Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe, Grey Zulu, Mainza Chona, Chitandika Kamanga, Sikota Wina, Lewis Changufu, Andrew Mutemba, Mukuka Nkoloso, Nalumino Mundia, Mama Chikamoneka and many others – Kaunda found the modern day Zambia State with a population of just over three million people.

Since Zambia (ZED) was completely dependent on copper exports (the bulk of forex coming from it) – KK made sure that the country remained connected to the World through the Commonwealth of Nations. Also ZED joined the United Nations. The pride and vision these freedom fighters had for Zambia at the D-Day is easily reflected in the Zambia’s National Anthem. Having over 75 tribal ethnicities, unity was a top priority.

The first stanza goes something like this:

• Stand and sing of Zambia, proud & free,
Land of work & joy in unity,
Victors in the struggle for the right,
We have won freedom’s fight.
All one, strong and free.

And boldly the anthem went on to remind us that our country is indeed:

• One land and one nation is our Cry,
Dignity and peace ‘neath Zambia’s sky,
Like our noble eagle in it’s flight,
Zambia, praise to thee.
All one, strong and free.

The landing wasn’t all that soft at all – because as Zambia & Malawi (Northern Rhodesia & Nyasaland then) broke off from the Federation of Rhodesia & Nyasaland (1953-1963) – Ian Smith of simply Rhodesia (today’s Zimbabwe) – which could no longer be called Southern Rhodesia, declared UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence) in 1965.

The immediate impact of UDI was a period of severe hardship for a land locked country like Zambia. Because of the UDI, the international community imposed economic sanctions on Smith. But it is us, who were completely dependant for nearly 100% of our exports through Rhodesia who suffered most. Our copper could not get out.

These times were so challenging, that there are those who believed that KK became good because to cope, he had to learn quickly through the school of hard knocks. To get our copper and cobalt out – USA, Britain & Canada banded together to try and assist the newly born country. Canada’s Bell Helicopters were unbelievably used to airlift some copper out bringing on their way back oil products, food and other imports like agricultural equipment.

But since this was insanely cost prohibitive – Zambia switched to road haulage from Dar-es-Salaam instead. The Dar route even if it too was suicidal saved the day. There are two explanations for that. First, in late 60’s and 70’s partly due to Vietnam War, copper prices were up. The other is because KK became friendly with a semi-despot, Siade Barre of Somalia. To maintain friendship, Barre commanded his countrymen – Khat chewing Somali haulers to transport goods from Dar to Zambia.

Can you imagine – the peak of this crisis took place during a rainy season when the untarred road from Dar-es-Salaam to Kapiri Mposhi was virtually impassable. No wonder it was nick named the Hell Run. Indeed, it was treacherous moving copper to and imported goods from Dar. Having no choice, it had to be done. Credit goes to KK’s resilience.

As if that was not enough – Kaunda, hardened from Zambia’s political struggle, believed that Zambia would not enjoy its peace before ALL OTHER black people in the Southern African hemisphere were also free. He felt that we had to help them. Hence he went on a crusade to assist guerrilla and political struggling going on in neighboring countries. Those countries include: Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola, Namibia, and indeed South Africa. For South Africa, he often used Nelson Mandela’s name when castigating the Apartheid regime.

Kaunda was less concerned about whether these countries would return a favor after being emancipated. Since he believed that it was the right thing to do, he did what he had to do regardless of payback cheque.

Although president Kaunda became almost like a semi-God after successfully building a Nation from the scratch – putting all the infrastructure together and coupled with a huge international political capital he had earned by helping other Southern Africa countries, his downfall eventually came.

Two factors are advanced for his departure from the scene. First was the one-party state which got entrenched in Zambia after the 1972 Choma’s declaration when all other political parties were banned except UNIP. The party, UNIP and its government became supreme and were unchallengeable.

The more UNIP seemed undefeatable and KK’s power base strengthened, Zambia shifted sharply towards socialism – often disguised as humanism. Then Maoism and not Marxism became very popular. To try and cement this socialist approach, KK nationalized every viable business in the country. Enterprises were Indeconized, which was under the roof of ZIMCO whose chairman was none other than KK. As long as the copper prices were up and population still small – this experiment worked. Zambians were happy and the size of middle class kept on growing.

Indeed, at that point in time things appeared good and Zambia was enjoying a “middle-income” status. At that time Zambia was the 3rd largest producer of copper – only beaten by US & Soviet Union. But as soon as copper prices started falling around 1975 or so, government revenues shrank, and inflation rate ballooned. To maintain things, government resorted to heavy borrowing. International debt consequently soared to over US$7 billion. While the middle class people managed to get their two meals per day – those on lower end, unemployed and rural folk began suffering as the quality and availability of social services deteriorated. Drugs in hospitals became scarce and school desks aged. University of Zambia was barely surviving. The agricultural production did not keep up pace of producing food for the rising population.

To try and maintain his authority and calm the resistive and increasing angry people – KK became more and more autocratic. Kaunda not only became closer and used some of Romania’s Nicholas Chauchescu tactics to rule, he began developing dictatorial tendencies.

Where we are

Frederick Chiluba (FTJ) and a few other vocal Zambians like Arthur Wina, who had become tired of Kaunda’s rule – assisted by the wind of change blowing from the collapsed Communism, took advantage of the opportunity. In 1991, when the country had sank into a malaise of historical proportions – unheard of food riots occurred in Lusaka and some parts of the Copper Belt. There was short supply of nearly everything from – cooking oil, sugar, meal meal, soap powder, transport etc. Zambia’s economy was simply devastated.

As soon as Kaunda had allowed the amendment of the Constitution to permit multipartysm – that was the spark which was a turning point. In the 1991 elections, Chiluba’s MMD won with a landslide margin. KK had to step out graciously conceding defeat.

When Frederick Chiluba took power, he turned Zambia 360 degrees and upside down. The economy responded immediately as the shortages completely disappeared and it started growing. Chiluba introduced sweeping economic reforms, among them – the privatization of nearly all para-statals, a complete reversal of KK’s thinking. He also opened up the stock market and removed exchange controls.

Some of these have been hailed as good while others not. Privatization was perhaps done too hastily and too haphazardly leaving room for a lot of mistakes and good deals for foreign investors. Consequently, the economy fell in the hands of foreigners an outcome which was not intended. This happened because not only that there weren’t enough Zambians with cash and business acumen to take over enterprises Chiluba was auctioning.

This situation pleased both investors and donor countries because it gave them a chance to entrench their foot back in the running of Zambia’s economy. The reversal of this is going to have to take some efforts. Zambians every where – including those in the Diaspora will have to come up with workable solutions. The new group called Diaspora Connect is trying to knit together ideas from some minds of Zambians living abroad. It turns out that Zambianization of the economy is not as easy as Zambianizing jobs in both civil and private sector. We are good workers and not good business people. Hopefully the post-independence youth will take up the challenge.

Chiluba like KK before him continued to be popular as long as the economy was strong, supported by high copper prices. When the prices collapsed in 1999, which affected the economy badly, his popularity sank. FTJ lost the grip of power due to weakened copper fortunes, and corruption country-wide set in. In spite of clear signs everywhere that people got fed up with his regime, nevertheless he himself believed that he was still popular.

His attempts to try and amend the constitution so that he could go on for the 3rd Term fell him. Ordinary Zambians led by civil society, NGOs, Churches and the opposition organized countrywide protests to block the 3rd Term bid. It was successful.

Although Chiluba’s final years as president became, even up to the last day, dominated by corruption charges – there are a number of successes in his 10-year rule which have been shadowed by the corruption debate. First, the introduction of multipartysm and the expansion of private independent media are obvious ones. Not so clear is the privatization of para-statals which not only eliminated those unprofitable ventures, also both Indeco & ZIMCO’s staffing was blot. Further, MMD did not only squash exchange controls, but Zambia started having positive real interest rates. That’s good.

Besides, by liberalizing the economy to free market principles, the country became ready to do business and compete with others on the world stage. The real estate sector boomed as more and more Zambians became aware of the benefits of owning property. Chiluba’s home ownership reforms sparked this. Last but not least, Zambians faced with a situation of sink or swim – in that when all social programs were cut, people got energized and learnt how to survive on their own without government.

Just as Kaunda was trying to prolong his rule – Chiluba began cosmetic attempts to try and protect himself from humiliation. He began by hand picking Patrick Levy Mwanawasa (Levy) as his successor. His hope was that the in-coming president would be lenient to him and his regimes misdeeds.

On the contrary – partly because Levy was elected with slimmest of margins, when in 2002 he beat Anderson Mazoka of UPND by a couple of percentages. Mwanawasa capitalized on anti-Chiluba protests. President Mwanawasa joined those groups accusing Chiluba of having personally stolen millions of dollars from government. After successfully petioning the Parliament to remove Chiluba’s presidential immunity – Levy charged and ended up arresting FTJ in 2003.

Since then, Chiluba has been going through court proceedings, which has culminated in him being acquitted of all charges by Judge Chinyama. The Late Mwanawasa would have probably been disappointed at the outcome because his legacy was his anti-corruption campaign. In fact it was his fight against corruption which probably saved him from being impeached. The opposition parties pushed by UPND and PF thought that Mwanawasa was fraudulently elected in 2002.

However, Levy soldiered on and began reforms which attracted foreign investors to invest in the mines. Chinese, Indians, Canadians and Aussies came – wooed by the excellent copper prices which rose to over US$8000 per MT. Investors were particularly happy about Mwanawasa’s good governance and belief in the ‘rule of law’. International money lenders and donors praised Mwanawasa for being fiscally prudent.

As a result – especially after fulfillment of all HIPC conditionalities, Zambia was rewarded by getting nearly all of its debts forgiven. Nearly $4 billion worth of foreign debt (over $7 billion) was wiped out. Whether the country benefited from such debt relief is another debate. But one thing is sure, that Levy built on the economic reforms began from Chiluba’s regime. Under Mwanawasa, the economy grew by over 5% annually.

This was boosted by good copper prices and strong commodities demand by countries in the Far East. Inflation dropped to a single digit (below nine percent). This was a great achievement indeed.

Perhaps the only major criticism that can be leveled against Mwanawasa is the hesitation and unclear policy when it comes to taxing minerals appropriately. During the times when copper (commodities) prices are high, that is the best time to accumulate revenues. But when copper price rose, the royalties charged were too low – some fraction of one percent. We needed at least three percent (3%). Also the question of whether we should use a formula based on windfall tax or a profit variable method has not been fully settled. In the mean time Zambia is losing millions of dollars in revenue. The over 400,000 MT of copper exported could have earned us a lot of money badly needed to develop our socio-economic infrastructure.

Had Mwanawasa lived, it can be speculated that he might have remedied some of these lapses. But God had other ideas. Levy was deprived of us in 2008 when suffered a stroke. Rupiah Banda (RB), who was a VP under Mwanawasa, has taken over.

Where do we go from here?

By trying to trace a chain of accomplishments by different Presidents beginning from the founding father President Kenneth Kaunda – up to the late Mwanawasa, the idea was to try and see the strengths and weaknesses of each one. That provides us – especially for the younger generation, some sort of litmus paper by which we can judge the path we have taken. This trajectory helps us to reflect on what is best for us. Evaluation of what we have done, gives us a chance to improve where we can. We can’t afford just to continue as is – whether it is good or not. That is not rational.

In my view – when it comes to politics, international stature, infrastructure building – for such things as hospitals, schools, and post-secondary institutions and safe guarding of our national assets and resources, KK was the best.

In as far as economic liberalization and opening up the economy so that it can function on free market principles – Chiluba was the principle mover.

Then came Mwanawasa who was trying to teach us how to behave in accordance with the rule of law, and live in a corrupt-free environment. Too bad Levy died before our Constitution was sorted out. He believed that Zambia needed a constitution which could pass the test of times – and should be the guiding rod of any successful nation.

A situation where corruption is rampant means that – national resources are being misallocated. Economic policies in such a miljö, is suboptimal and always works at a disadvantage of the nationals. This is because it makes it easier for the foreigners to bribe their way through. And partly due to corruption culture – the bulk of our resources are allocated and consumed by only one-percent of Europeans plus another one-percent of Zambians. Leaving 98% of the people with almost nothing.

We should not accept a situation whereby poverty levels are in the range of 80%. HIV/Aids attacks some 25% of our people reducing considerably life expectance. Also when at least fifty percent (50%) of our active labor force is either unemployed or under employed, then we know that we have a lot of work to do in creating jobs. Whatever money we earn from minerals should be put to good use – that is we must invest it in education and youth instead of Hammers.

While the expansion of mobile phones is a welcome development (1 phone: 10 cellulars), unless you are using them for positive development – they too can just end up as another waste of resources. Crises like the current fuel one – would not be eliminated so long as we don’t plan well and continue with our selfish attitudes, instead of opting for national collective action. We know that it can be done because countries we helped like Namibia and Mozambique are doing much better than us.

Finally, if we don’t adjust, I would not be surprised if some time in the future – my grandchildren became subservient to a Chinese or Indian dynasty. Let those who’ve got ears to hear and those with minds to ponder over some of these issues.

HAPPY 45th ZAMBIA NATIONAL DAY

Toronto, October 23rd, 2009

Dr. Kaela B. Mulenga

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