Revolution, not evolution: Why Zambia’s old wounds still bleed under new rule
…Zambia needs revolutions, not evolutions to provide solutions to its resolutions: A reprint article
By Professor Munyonzwe Hamalengwa
IT is refreshing to reread what one had written under a different regime and circumstances and to reflect on what has remained the same or has changed.
The following article was written in the dark days of the Patriotic Front (PF) reign. It seems some of the themes discussed at the time are still relevant now under the UPND reign and it is for the government to deal with the remaining issues.
Any discerning reader will identify what has remained the same and what has changed. I reproduce the article without any editing in full herein.
The government seems to be very satisfied that it has pacified the rebellious mining companies that had threatened to cut jobs in retaliation for the yet to be introduced new taxation regime that would eat into the profits of mining companies. The headlines screaming at us now reveal that the companies will not engage in job cuts precisely because of the political threats levelled against the mining companies by our leaders.
The question, however is: will the mining companies now pay more verifiable taxes than before or will they continue to evade or avoid paying taxes as they have always done since they were founded? The mining companies and the government have not revealed how both will do things any different.
Both flexed their muscles at each other, the mines displayed their economic muscles and the government displayed its political muscle. The mines didn’t bring to the table a detailed economic analysis of how the new tax regime would drastically affect their profits and how they could fairly contribute to the economic pie of Zambia given the massive profits they accrue, albeit that these companies do not declare any profits at all but it is common knowledge that they haul loads of profit.
On the other hand, the government didn’t go to the mining companies with a detailed economic analysis of how the new tax regime will extract fair taxes from the mining companies. The government has no economic blueprint of how to solve the mining companies’ tax evasion or avoidance stratagems at all. They engaged in purely political threats thinking that the threats will solve the problem.
Yes, the mines have promised not to lay off workers. But then what? What permanent solution has been achieved? Knowing that if the government did not use political threats, the mining companies were going to lay off workers, what alternative economic measures has the government designed so that the mining companies do not blackmail and extort this government again since mining companies, auto companies, multinational companies, private companies etc engage in such extortion everyday in some country somewhere including Zambia?
Mining and other multinational companies are known to leave cities like ghost towns after they have evacuated, taking all the profits with them, like locusts leave a once heavily vegetated location. The evidence is there for all to see: the black mountains of Kitwe and Johannesburg, the ghost towns of Kabwe, Oshawa in Ontario, Canada and Detroit, Michigan, USA, the deep big ditches of Johannesburg, Kitwe and elsewhere, the devastated neighbourhoods and polluted rivers and much more. And thousands of unemployed former workers who can no longer pay their mortgages!
The Government of Zambia has solved nothing. There is no economic alternative. We will hearing about the same problems involving the mines year in and year out. We need a revolution and not evolution in dealing with mining companies for permanent solutions.
A judge in England stated in obiter in the Lungowe case involving mining pollution in Kitwe that the Zambian government and its judiciary are too weak in dealing with giant mining companies whom in fact they protect politically that it was important to assume jurisdiction in England in a Zambian-originated case in order to provide justice to the poor victims of mining companies’ pollution activities in Zambia!
The mining companies affected lost the jurisdiction fight and appealed the decision to the higher courts in England, fighting hard to have that case held in Zambia where they will get political and judicial protection from Government and the judiciary against the poor victims. (The mining companies lost all the way to the Supreme Court of England and had to settle out of court).
The Lungowe decision ought to be compulsory reading by every Zambian. President Lungu expressed dismay that a Zambian case could be taken to England and tainting Zambia’s image abroad. He threatened to deal with the lawyer who did that by taking up the matter with the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ). That matter was dead on arrival.
The political threats against mining companies in Zambia and the seeming backing down by the mining companies in terms of job cuts is much ado about nothing. These two entities work together and no permanent solution is forthcoming. Revolution and not evolution in dealing with mining companies is the solution.
There is another matter that requires revolution and not evolution to provide a solution. A recent Transparency International (TI) report discloses that corruption in Zambia is higher and deeper than ever before. In response to this report and in order to bury the news the report bears, what does the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) do? They go and arrest a UPND MP all the way in Livingstone for corruption allegations involving land dealings in 2011-13 period and are looking for ex-councillors of that period while leaving out all the corrupt big fish living in Lusaka and provincial capitals who were unearthed by the Auditor General, the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) and the Public Accounts Committee as recently as 2018!
Not only that, there are so many land-related corrupt practices involving the big and biggest cabals right here in Lusaka. The PF cadres are involved in bigger scandals depriving the Lusaka City Council of millions of tax kwachas from the Intercity bus terminal by broad daylight robbery of bus operators of their money. The Police Headquarters is a stone’s throw away. The ACC Headquarters is in Lusaka. Both are toothless in the face of mighty.
Further the ACC has reportedly arrested, though it is disputed, some minor PF cadres who allegedly entertained bribery involving illegal sale of Zambian maize in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) while leaving out the corrupt bigger fish living in Lusaka who are allegedly involved in maize-gate scandal pertaining to the sale of Zambian maize in Malawi!
A revolution and not evolution is required to provide a solution concerning the ACC. That body as claimed by so many is much ado about nothing. It condones corruption involving the bigger fish and only stirs into mild action in order to kill any reports about increasing corruption in Zambia.
A revolution and not evolution is required to provide a permanent solution concerning the cancer of tribalism in Zambia. Why was a poor nurse all the way in Kalomo investigated (although exonerated at great psychological cost) for tribalism when bigger fish and certain newspapers right here in Lusaka have spouted tribalism openly and consistently, including in the patterns of employment, whose patterns you can detect by content analysis of newspapers about who occupies which position and who gets appointed to most positions.
The tribalists are hard at work thinking that they can turn the tables by accusing their victims of tribalism when it is them who are practicing tribalism! It is so transparently silly and only the gullible will buy in. The question is: Are Zambians including the highly educated gullible? You know the answer. A revolution and not evolution is required to provide the solution to tribalism in Zambia.
How about the unequal application of the Public Order Act (POA) and police biases in the application of the law? A revolution and not evolution to provide a solution is called concerning the unequal application of the POA and the police abdication of all responsibility in the equal application and equal benefit of the law. As it stands now, Zambia needs many revolutions and not evolutions to provide solutions for the multitudes of traumas affecting it. Matters adjourned sine die.
Prof. Munyonzwe Hamalengwa is the Compiler of “The Case Against Tribalism in Zambia” sold on Amazon.com and pictured herein.
