CHAMBISHI COPPER SMELTER

The President is proud to say that Chambeshi copper smelter will employ 600 people. The much talked about 600 people have already been employed and they are getting as little as K540,000 per month inclusive of housing allowance and overtime.

Now if you multiply K 540,000 by 600 employees by 12 months you will find that this company is spending K3, 888,000,000 which is equivalent to $845,000 at the current exchange rate.

The current PAYE threshold is K800, 000 meaning all the 600 employees are not contributing to the national treasury.

This company has capacity to produce 150,000 metric tons of copper blister which is worth $900,000,000 at the current copper price of $6,000 per metric ton. So the wage bill is 0.093% of gross income and the government is boasting that we have investors.

Let us challenge the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) to tell the nation how much money in tax they have collected from this company so far. Though the Smelter was commissioned on Monday, 19 October 2009, production started in March this year. And for your information, the copper blister which this smelter is exporting contains 0.4% Gold so each ton of copper exported there is 4kg of Gold worth $92,000 more than the price of a ton of copper.

The question is who is benefiting from this loot?


(Informed sources , October 23, 2009)

_________________________________________________________________________

OZAFO UPDATE: SEPTEMBER, 2009

PRESIDENT LEVY MWANAWASA DIES: A TRIBUTE

By

Charles David Mwewa

September 3, 1948  -  August 18, 2008

M.H.S.R.I.P

Levy Patrick Mwanawasa was born in Mufulira, Zambia on September 3, 1948. He was a second son in the family of ten members. A graduate of the University of Zambia, Mwanawasa held a law degree from the same university. He worked in the private law firms from 1974 to 1978 before he founded his own firm called Mwanawasa & Company.

President Mwanawasa has left behind a wife, Maureen Mwanawasa, and six children: Chipokota, Matolo, Luboma, and Ntembe from Maureen. and Miriam and Patrick, from his first marriage. President Mwanawasa was a member of the Jehovah’s Witness before being disfellowshipped for his active role in politics. In March, 2005, President Mwanawasa was baptized by Southern Baptism missionaries.

Dr. Mwanawasa was Zambia’s Solicitor General in 1985, but decided to go back for private practice in 1986. At the inception of the MMD in 1990, Dr. Mwanawasa was tipped as the favourite to become MMD’s president but he declined the office. He, however, stood as a Member of Parliament and won with an overwhelming majority. He was named Vice-president of the Republic of Zambia in December 1991 by the then newly elected president, Dr. Frederick Chiluba. He left his private law firm in 1992 to concentrate on running the country.

On December 8, 1991 Mwanawasa was involved in a serious traffic accident. His aid died on the spot. Mwanawasa was hospitalized for three months in Johannesburg, South Africa. The accident left him with garbled speech. Although opponents within the MMD party were suspects, a Scotland Yard investigation exonerated them.

Mwanawasa, however, resigned his vice-presidency portfolio citing insubordination from his fellow colleagues in the government and abuse of office by some ministers in government in 1994. Two years later, he contested for the ruling party’s presidency against the incumbent President Chiluba, but lost.

The National Executive Committee of the MMD elected Mwanawasa as its presidential candidate in 2000. In the presidential elections that followed in 2001, Mwanawasa emerged victorious defeating ten other candidates to become Zambia’s third republican president. He took office on January 2, 2002.

President Mwanawasa ran for the second term in 2006 returning his presidency. Michael Sata was considered his major challenger, but President Mwanawasa received 43 per cent and formed a new cabinet.

The president experienced a minor stroke in 2006. While in Sharm-Sheikh in Egypt for an African Union Summit, President Mwanawasa was hospitalized due to a brain hemorrhage on June 29, 2008. On July 2, 2008, a rumor escalated that Mwanawasa had died. The Office of the Vice-president and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Lusaka issued a joint statement on July 3, 2008 that the Zambian President was alive. He was however, in the Intensive Care Unit at Percy Clamant Military Hospital in Paris, France.

President Mwanawasa continued to battle for his health in France. On Monday August 18, 2008, Zambia’s Vice-president, Lupiya Banda said that the president’s health had suddenly deteriorated and he had undergone emergency surgery. And then shortly the vice-president announced on state television: “Fellow countrymen, with deep sorrow and grief, I would like to inform the people of Zambia that our president Dr. Levy Patrick Mwanawasa died this morning at 1030 hours (4:30 a.m. EDT),” Hon. Banda continued: “I also wish to inform the nation that national mourning starts today and will be for seven days.” Banda is expected to take over as acting president, according to Zambia’s constitution, before early elections in Zambia.

Mwanawasa was chairman of the South African Development Community (SADC) when he was taken ill in June. In that role he had been critical of the controversial election in Zimbabwe and had said he sympathized with Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai when he withdrew from the run-off because of attacks on his supporters. Speaking earlier this year of Zimbabwe and the exodus of millions of its citizens, Mwanawasa said the country “has sunk into such economic difficulties that it may be likened to a sinking Titanic whose passengers are jumping out in a bid to save their lives.”

Mwanawasa won praise abroad for tackling corruption and turning the copper-rich southern African country into one of the continent’s biggest success stories. The International Monetary Fund and other Western donors extended billions of dollars in debt relief after Mwanawasa curbed government spending and launched the biggest anti-corruption drive since Zambia won independence from Britain in 1964. Mwanawasa’s economic policies helped usher in strong growth, which averaged 5 percent over the last six years, while inflation declined to single digits in April 2006, for the first time in over three decades. Some people perceived that his strong fiscal record had done little to benefit most Zambians especially in poverty alleviation. But most people agree that Mwanawasa was headed in the right economic direction.

President Mwanawasa’s death has created political uncertainty in Zambia, which is Africa’s biggest copper producer. The Zambia’s currency, the kwacha, fell as much as 3 percent during Mwanawasa’s hospitalization.

Call him whatever you may, President Mwanawasa was from a newer generation of African leaders. He had been more critical of Mugabe than presidents of many of Zimbabwe’s other neighbors who had stronger connections to the era of liberation struggles. In a statement read on his behalf to a southern African summit, Mwanawasa said events in Zimbabwe were “a serious blot on the culture of democracy in our sub-region.”

Mwanawasa has courage to speak his own mind about issues that needed to be confronted. The south-African region has lost a political asset. Courageous and dedicated men like President Mwanawasa are hard to come by.

President Mwanawasa’s death poses both a challenge and an opportunity. A challenge - because, like his predecessor - Mwanawasa’s untimely death did not give him a chance to properly groom a successor. Is there someone out there in Zambia, or even outside of Zambia, who will continue Mwanawasa’s economic policy?

Will we find someone wearing the same team shirt so that the fragile economic transformation will continue to sustain our political and economic gains?

Mwanawasa’s death can be an opportunity. An opportunity - to dispel a great deal of political uncertainty for a clear, visionary leader to take over from him.

________________________________________________________________________

August 2008

PRAYER SERVICE FOR PRESIDENT MWANAWASA

The Zambian Canadian Association in conjunction with the Zambian High Commission in Canada organized a successful prayer service for His Excellency President Mwanawasa, who has been hospitalized in a French hospital. The service took place on August 9, 2008 at World Influence Ministries, 427 Bloor Street West in downtown Toronto at 1:00 PM. In attendance was the High Commissioner to Canada, H.E, David Saviye, and his deputy. The service was graced by Rev. Gabriel Schultz and Charles Catto. Charles David, founder of Our-Zambia.Com moderated the ceremony.

_______________________________________________________________________

July 2008

INTRODUCING OUR-ZAMBIA RADIO