Ethno-Net Database: Zambia

Reports on Ethnic Relations / Rapports sur les relations éthniques

The following section is mainly consisted of part, full or summaries of articles taken from newspapers.
La section suivante est essentiellement constituée d'exraits, de la totalité ou de résumés d'articles issues de journaux .

Up to 100,000 public workers in Zambia went on a nationwide strike on Tuesday aimed at forcing the government to honour a pay agreement it says it can no longer afford to implement.

"We have officially started a countrywide strike because the government seems to be ignoring our demands, even after they signed a collective agreement. The strike we have started today is indefinite and all the workers have responded to it, with some shutting down shop as early as yesterday," Civil Servants and Allied Workers Union of Zambia (CSUZ) secretary-general, Darrison Chaala, told IRIN.

This is the second walkout by civil servants in less than two weeks over their demands for a pay rise and a housing allowance.

Abel Chambeshi, a senior cabinet minister, accused the unions of being in league with opposition parties out to destabilise the government. "It's not good to mix politics with unionism because the effect of strike actions is bad for the economy... Unions should not allow themselves to be used by politicians," Chambeshi warned.

Chaala dismissed the notion of the opposition being behind the industrial action. "The strike is about the government's failure to honour an agreement - to bring in opposition politics is folly," he said.

The government of President Levy Mwanawasa agreed to a salary rise and housing benefits for public workers in April. However, faced with a projected US $124 million budget overrun and pressure from donors to close the deficit, the government delayed implementation of the agreement.

Earlier this month public workers launched a three-day strike, but returned to work after the government appeared to concede to their demands. Chaala accused the government this week of again reneging on the deal and said this time the strike would be indefinite.

But secretary to the cabinet in charge of finance and economic development, David Diangamo, told IRIN the government was "confident this problem will be sorted out" if the unions accepted a smaller remuneration package, "especially on housing allowances".

The industrial action is the latest bad news for the government. It follows the dashing of Zambia's hopes of qualifying for debt relief this year under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries initiative due to a combination of factors ranging from overspending to a slowdown in the country's privatisation programme.

It costs Zambia around $150 million to $200 million each year to service its $6.5 billion debt. Diangamo said qualifying for debt relief would save around $3.8 billion over the next 20 years.

"That is a lot of money. It represents about 60 percent of the total foreign debt stock, but there is no use crying over spilt milk. The main reason for not qualifying is because of some donor concerns over privatisation and the projected budget overrun ... but as far as we're concerned, this is something we can work out."

However, the anti-debt NGO Jubilee Zambia said the country's inability to qualify for debt relief this year was a serious blow.

"This clearly goes to show that the solutions our creditors give to our unsustainable debt problems greatly lack substance and are unable to work. The budget overrun, which is being cited as one of the reasons Zambia has to miss out on debt relief, is responsible for only about two percent of the national budget ... is it fair to punish almost 10 million people because of such an issue?" asked Jubilee spokeswoman, Charity Musamba.

It was a sentiment shared by Gregory Chikwakwa of the Civil Society for Poverty Reduction. "The suffering of the majority of Zambians is definitely ignored by the western bilateral and multilateral donors when they make a decision to deny us debt relief. What this means is that money that could have gone towards poverty reduction will now be going towards debt servicing, and poverty reduction [programmes] will suffer again because the West has changed the goal posts," he told IRIN.

One of the conditions set by the International Monetary Fund for winning debt relief was that Zambia was to have completely privatised the state-owned Zambia National Commercial Bank and the power utility, the Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation (ZESCO). Instead of selling all its shares in the national bank, the government disposed of 49 percent, while Mwanawasa preferred to commercialise ZESCO rather than offering it to the market.

"The government did not stick to the letter of intent they wrote to the IMF," Ignatius Chicha, a senior economic analyst with Citibank Zambia told IRIN. "But the situation is not as bad as it has been made to appear ... Zambia will still qualify in a year or so if they focus on benchmarks."

A motion to impeach Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa on charges of graft, nepotism and violating the constitution, was tossed out of parliament on Wednesday.

Despite a spirited fight by the opposition, the motion's defeat was inevitable, failing by 92 votes to 57, and effectively bringing to an end attempts to use parliamentary procedure to unseat Mwanawasa.

Even though the motion was thrown out, some analysts suggested it had served the opposition's purpose, as it had damaged Mwanawasa's reputation as an anti-corruption crusader following allegations made in parliament that he too had been involved in graft.

Perhaps the most damaging testimony in the impeachment debate came from the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) deputy party leader, Enoch Kavindele, who, until his sacking in June for involvement in an irregular crude oil contract, had been Zambia's vice-president.

Kavindele received cheers from the opposition and jeers from his own party when he alleged that Mwanawasa had pocketed up to US $60,000 meant for the party, and had awarded a named personal friend a tender to import 30,000 mt of maize at an inflated price.

"You can clearly see from the evidence I am going to lay on the table that, even though Mr Mwanawasa accuses his predecessor of corruption, he is just as bad. He is very corrupt and ungrateful," Kavindele said.

But MMD chief whip Eric Silwamba, said the law that allows for impeachment ought to be revisited because it was bound to be abused by disgruntled legislators with an axe to grind.

"Some of the issues that have been raised in the impeachment motion do not warrant being there ... that is why we are going to throw out this motion, not only because we evidently have the numbers, but because this motion lacks merit," Silwamba said amid MMD cheers.

Zambia's parliament has 159 members, including the Speaker of the House who is supposed to be neutral. The president has the power to nominate eight non-voting legislators.

In order to compel the Speaker to place an impeachment motion on the table, the opposition needed 53 signatures. To move the motion to the second and more serious stage of a Supreme Court tribunal, they needed the support of two-thirds of legislators.

In 2001 the four parliamentary opposition parties had a majority of 81 MPs against the MMD's 69. This year, in what some analysts said was a clear attempt to divide the opposition, and punish dissidents within his own party furious at his anti-corruption drive, Mwanawasa appointed nine opposition lawmakers to his cabinet.

On Tuesday the opposition legislators, calling themselves the Inter-parliamentary Caucus on the Defence of the Constitution and Good Governance, presented the Speaker with a six-page motion containing 25 allegations against Mwanawasa. Chief among the charges was that Mwanawasa violated the constitution when he appointed the Reverend Nevers Mumba, an opposition leader who failed in the 2001 presidential elections, as vice-president after Kavindele was sacked.

"The laws of Zambia do not allow a person who lost an election ... [to take] up such a position. The president has poached nine opposition members from the opposition and appointed them to cabinet positions - again against the law," chief whip Crispin Sibetta of the opposition United Party for National Development told the highly charged house on Tuesday.

But Mwanawasa has won kudos from some political watchers, who have applauded him for letting the impeachment process proceed. "In Africa, presidents interfere with all arms of the government - the judiciary, the legislator and even civil society... If Mwanawasa wanted, he would have used his 'African' leadership skills to stop the motion, but he didn't, which I think is a plus," political analyst Mulenga Chanda told IRIN.

However, government critic Ngande Mwanajiti, of the Inter Africa Network for Human Rights and Development (AFRONET), said the charges levelled against Mwanawasa were grave and deserved a better hearing. "Parliamentarians are there to serve people and not an individual ... if the president violated the constitution, they should have put their partisan views aside, and voted for the better good."

Meanwhile, Mwanawasa still faces a Supreme Court petition over the results of the 2001 presidential elections, in which the opposition declared his victory illegal.

In an unprecedented move, Zambia's opposition parties on Tuesday successfully tabled a motion in parliament to impeach President Levy Mwanawasa, accusing him of "gross violation of the constitution, corruption, nepotism" and "blatant disregard" of laid-down government procedure in awarding tenders.

The opposition legislators, calling themselves the Inter-parliamentary Caucus on the Defence of the Constitution and Good Governance (ICDCGG), presented the Speaker of the House with a six-page motion containing 25 allegations against Mwanawasa.

Chief among the charges are that Mwanawasa violated the constitution when he appointed the Reverend Nevers Mumba, an opposition leader who failed in the 2001 presidential elections.

The opposition will need the support of 53 legislators out of a 159-seat house to move the motion forward and compel the Speaker to appoint a Supreme Court tribunal to look into their allegations. The ICDCGG claim to have 57 lawmakers' signatures supporting the impeachment.

Crucially for Mwanawasa, his anti-corruption campaign has also angered many senior officials in his own Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) party. Both the opposition and members of the ruling party are furious that Mwanawasa appointed opposition leaders to his government, allowing him to weed out opponents within his administration.

Mwanawasa, at a public rally three months ago, stated that he would "destroy" the opposition by co-opting their legislators into government positions.

In defence of Mwanawasa, George Kunda, the minister of legal affairs and the attorney-general, asked the house to throw out the impeachment motion, charging that it was only meant to embarrass the president and had no hope of succeeding.

"Today is a sad day in Zambia's history because of this motion. This motion is baseless, reckless and malicious, and badly drafted. The movers know that they have no chance of succeeding and are merely doing this to ridicule our beloved head of state," Kunda said.

Opposition legislators have walked out of parliament five times in the current sitting in a bid to force the Speaker to allow them to present the impeachment motion.

"We shall make Mwanawasa the first president to be impeached in Africa and, hopefully, that will send a strong message elsewhere in Africa," Sibetta said.

Zambia's public sector workers on Monday launched a three-day nationwide strike to force the government to honour a wage increase agreement.

The unions ignored an appeal by President Levy Mwanawasa on Sunday, who feared strike action would damage the economy and cripple the government. "I am making a passionate appeal for you not to strike so that we can find other ways of resolving this matter," Mwanawasa said.

Secretary-General of the Civil Servants Union of Zambia, Darrison Chaala, told IRIN that the unions were prepared for a series of strikes until the government bowed to their demands.

"The nationwide strike by government workers starts today and ends on Wednesday, when we hope the government would have agreed to pay better wages and give workers their housing allowance. If they don't act on our demands, we shall go on strike again for a week and if, after a week, the government of President Mwanawasa does not react positively, the strike will be indefinite and operations of the government are bound to suffer greatly," Chaala said.

Martha Banda, 25, has one child and works for a government department that pays her 200,000 kwacha (about US $40) a month, making her one of the lowest paid workers in the country. She fully supports the industrial action.

"Surviving on such little money is tough ... especially if you have a child to look after, like I do, it is extremely difficult," Banda told IRIN at the Pamodzi Hotel in the capital, Lusaka, where almost 1,000 public workers gathered to kick off the strike.

The Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection, which collects monthly cost of living statistics, estimates that a household of six needs to spend up to $160 on basics alone.

After protracted negotiations with union leaders in April, the government agreed to salary increases and housing allowances for the 120,000 public workers to help cushion the impact of the cost of living. The lowest paid workers would earn $123 and the most senior $220.

However, the administration was forced to renege on the pay agreement when the International Monetary Fund demanded that the government tackle a projected budget overrun of about 600 billion kwacha ($124 million) and withheld $100 million in aid.

The IMF, World Bank and bilateral Western donors fund almost half of Zambia's national budget. In order to access aid and debt relief, the government is expected to cut spending and fight corruption.

Union leaders, however, argue that the sacrifices should not come from their members, but from within Mwanawasa's bloated 66-member cabinet, with an end to expensive trips abroad and ministerial perks like expensive vehicles.

At the Pamodzi Hotel the workers sang: "When we are hungry and say we want money or better conditions, we are told there's no money, but ministers simply dream up better perks or trips and the next day they are turned into reality ... this cannot go on."

The Zambian government has pulled the rug from under the feet of its critics by agreeing to a more representative body to review the country's constitution.

Legal Affairs Minister George Kunda said in a statement in parliament on Friday that the government had acceded to the requests of civil society to amend a section of the Public Inquiries Act, allowing a role for civil society in the constitutional review process.

The decision means that after submissions have been made, the government and civil society would simultaneously be given the documents to review. The government would produce a white paper to be considered by the cabinet, while civil society would develop a green paper for debate, and the two would then be merged.

It would no longer mean that, as some NGOs had feared, President Levy Mwanawasa and his cabinet could vet recommendations and then have their decisions "rubber stamped" by a parliament dominated by the ruling party.

Activists had called for Zambia's fourth constitutional review to be conducted by a more representative constituent assembly, but the government's announcement appeared to have caught flat-footed the Oasis Forum, an umbrella body comprising the country's main churches and NGOs, who have been spearheading a boycott of the government's Constitutional Review Commission (CRC). Spokesperson Lucy Muyoyeta told IRIN that the Forum was still studying the ministerial statement and had "no comment at the moment".

It also took the wind out of the sails of the Non-Governmental Coordinating Committee (NGOCC), who had applied for a high court injunction restraining the CRC from beginning its sittings on 11 August. Although the injunction was refused, the court granted the NGOCC leave to apply for a judicial review.

But constitutional lawyer Patrick Matibini said he did not think there was anything more to study, as the government had acquiesced to civil society demands. "I just hope people [the Oasis Forum] do not start changing the goal posts. They have been crying for an amendment to the inquiries act, and government has given in to them - it's time to stop fighting and work together."

Kunda said the government had made its decision after "hearing the cries of the people" and emphasised that it was always the government's intention to listen to public opinion before making a decision on the constitutional process.

However, analysts suggested there could be a different interpretation. On Thursday, four commissioners wrote to CRC chairman Willie Mungomba, threatening to resign because they no longer had confidence that Mwanawasa and his government were sincere in wanting a transparent constitution-making process, which would almost certainly rein in presidential powers.

A senior government source told IRIN that the threat from the commissioners was the final straw. "With only two days to go before the CRC starts sitting, government could not afford to have commissioners in dissent. It would have been derailed by the resignations, giving weight to the resistance of the Oasis Forum and the court action by NGOCC. It was not really about choice, it was about saving face."

Opposition legislators boycotted parliament again on Wednesday to demonstrate their disapproval of President Levy Mwanawasa's decision to appoint an opposition leader as vice-president, a move criticised as unconstitutional.

Only deputies from the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) and some "opposition" MPs, who have defied their parties and accepted positions in Mwanawasa's government, were present in parliament.

This is the fifth time that MPs, calling themselves the Inter-parliamentary Caucus on the Defence of the Constitution and Good Governance (ICDCGG), have stayed away from parliament, disrupting the work of the house.

"The worst thing the walkouts have resulted in is that all work done by parliamentary committees has come to a stand-still, because most of them are chaired by the opposition. We shall keep staying away until Mwanawasa sees and admits the wrongs he is committing, and agrees to correct them," ICDCGG spokesperson, Sakwiba Sikota, told IRIN.

Under Zambian law, legislators can file a motion before parliament to impeach the head of state if he has been in breach of the constitution, as long as one-third of the 158-member house signs the petition. In this case the petitioners have come up with 57 members, but believe they can collect more signatures to support their cause.

The petitioners argue that the Zambian constitution prohibits a politician who contested a general election, and lost, from taking up the post of vice-president. Reverend Nevers Mumba stood in the 2001 presidential poll and was soundly beaten. Two months ago, he dissolved his own political party, joined the MMD and was appointed vice-president, replacing Enoch Kavindele, whom Mwanawasa sacked following an oil contract controversy.

Mwanawasa has described the walkout campaign of the opposition as "foolish" and called on them to either resign or start sitting normally.

A visibly annoyed Mwanawasa told university students on national television on Tuesday that "had the electorate known that their elected members would be walking out, they would not have elected them."

Mwanawasa's inflammatory language has scuttled reconciliation efforts initiated by Home Affairs Minister Ronnie Shikapwasha.

"We thought the differences would be normalised when Shikapwasha talked reconciliation - and we were ready to talk. The tirade of insults coming from Mwanawasa, however, shows that he is not ready to dialogue," Sikota told IRIN.

To add to Mwanawasa's difficulties, the Non-Governmental Organisations Coordinating Committee (NGO-CC) filed an injunction on Wednesday asking the high court to block the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) from sitting on 11 August, when it is supposed to start receiving submissions from the public.

The Oasis Forum, comprising the Law Association of Zambia and influential church bodies, have refused to support the CRC, preferring a Constituent Assembly to write Zambia's fourth constitution.

"When you have a parliament that refuses to sit, and a civil society that is taking legal action against the government constantly, you must know the country is in a crisis, and to deny that there's a crisis makes the situation worse," analyst Mulenga Bwalya told IRIN.

If the impeachment petition is put on the table for debate, the petitioners would need an additional two-thirds of the legislators to move it forward.

"After the two-thirds majority has been found, the speaker of the house must recommend that a tribunal be set up to hear the complaints of breach of the constitution by the Supreme Court... It is a difficult stage to reach because you need the numbers, but once you reach it, your petition is almost through," Vincent Malambo, a constitutional expert, told IRIN.

The ICDCGG is aware of the fact that the numbers could be hard to come by, should the motion move to the second stage, but they remain optimistic. "Failure is not something we are contemplating. We shall ensure that we make other members who have not signed up see the importance of this matter," Sikota told IRIN.

Former Zambian president Frederick Chiluba on Wednesday lost an appeal to have his US $40 million corruption case heard in a high court.

Chiluba told IRIN he doubted the capacity of a magistrates' court to give him a fair and speedy trial, noting the "constitutional issues" likely to emerge at his hearing. He also cited the fact that his bail was set at an "unrealistic" $300,000, on the assumption that he had that kind of money available.

However, Judge Japhet rejected Chiluba's application, and an appeal to the Supreme Court was also dismissed. Chiluba is to appear in a magistrates' court on 27 August.

The government's interagency task force on corruption investigating Chiluba struck on Tuesday after months of silence, arresting the former president and indicting him on 96 counts of theft by a public servant.

Chiluba, who ruled Zambia for a decade, faces a total of 155 counts, all in relation to an account held by the intelligence service in London, known as ZAMTROP.

Chiluba's lawyers, John Sangwa and Robert Simeza, on Wednesday said their client was being persecuted. They argued that all the counts against Chiluba arose from withdrawals from the ZAMTROP account.

"The entire case has no merit ... [Chiluba] cannot be charged for all the withdrawals, whether it was $1 or $1 million - these were normal operations of the intelligence unit," Simeza argued.

Michael Sata, a former Chiluba ally and now an opposition leader, alleged that President Levy Mwanawasa was "behaving like the Roman king who, when put in a tight corner by his people, brought in gladiators to keep peoples' minds off his rule. He wants to preoccupy us with Chiluba, so we forget the mess he is making of the country."

Mwanawasa is indeed facing a challenging period. An impeachment process has begun in parliament over the appointment of his vice-president, which critics charge was done unconstitutionally. The Supreme Court is hearing a petition by the opposition, claiming the presidential election was rigged. The International Monetary Fund has threatened to withhold $100 million in aid because of a projected $124 million budget overrun, and public service workers have launched a series of strikes, crippling the government.

"That Mwanawasa has problems is putting it mildly," political analyst Fred Mutesa told IRIN. The only area in which Mwanawasa "shines" is his anti-corruption campaign, so it was only logical for him to try to capitalise on it by catching the biggest fish, he suggested.

Mwanawasa has consistently argued that his anti-corruption drive is aimed at recovering $300 million in funds, plundered by the previous administration, which he wants to plough back into poverty alleviation programmes.

Mwanawasa resigned from Chiluba's government in 1992, critical of the administration's record on corruption.

In response to Chiluba's allegation that he was being victimised, a senior member of the task force told IRIN: "I have never come across a person in the dock who thinks he is being treated fairly. They are all being persecuted and, I guess, they are in a sense."

There is good news and bad news for Zambia's economic managers who hope to grow the economy by 4 percent this year and cut inflation by four points to 17.9 percent.

The good news is that a surplus in the production of maize amounting to 1.2 million mt will result in a drop in food inflation, while an increase in copper and cobalt production - the country's main foreign exchange earner - may see better economic growth figures.

Copper production increased by 18 percent to 87,392 mt in the second quarter of the year, from 74,310 mt in the first quarter. Cobalt output climbed by 15 percent, from 742 mt to 854 mt over the same period, according to the Central Bank.

The bad news, however, is that a projected 600 billion kwacha (about US $124 million) budget overrun and looming mass action by unions may reverse most of the gains, analysts warn.

"The trade union movement insists that they will down tools if the government halts the wage increment and the housing allowances it promised them. If the government has to honour its promise, it may have to borrow money from the open market by selling Treasury Bills and this may see an increase in interest rates, and it may also create instability in the kwacha, therefore reversing most of the good things they (the government) stand to gain if all things were equal," Ignatius Chicha, a senior economic analyst at Citibank Zambia told IRIN.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has also withheld $100 million meant for Zambia until the government finds a solution to the projected budget overrun, adding to the government's woes.

Finance and National Planning Minister Patrick Magande and a visiting IMF team said in a joint statement last week that the increment awarded to public workers had to be revisited if the economic targets in the budget were to be met.

But Darrison Chaala, head of the 120,000-member Civil Servants Union of Zambia (CSUZ), has warned that if President Levy Mwanawasa fails to honour the promised wage increase, nationwide industrial action aimed at crippling government would follow.

Currently, the average public sector salary is about $60. Union leaders demanded $300 across the board, but earlier this year settled for an increase to $123 for the lowest paid public worker and $220 for the highest paid.

The Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection, which collects monthly cost of living statistics, estimates that a family of six spends $160 on basic household items alone.

Mwelwa Muleya, an analyst at the NGO the Foundation for a Democratic Process, says the government has found itself "between a rock and a hard place", as they choose between placating labour or the IMF.

"It's a recipe for political upheaval, considering that the political temperature in the country is already highly charged. The government and the IMF should seriously consider the political and economic consequences of industrial strife and reach an acceptable agreement over this matter," Muleya said.

The government's decision earlier this year to order luxury cars for its 66-member cabinet, while calling for sacrifice from workers, has not helped its cause.

"They (the government) cannot honestly ask us to sacrifice when they are ordering new cars, they have awarded themselves huge perks and they are constantly embarking on expensive foreign trips ... we cannot sacrifice any more, it's their turn," Chaala said.

Judging from the performance last week of the Minister of Legal Affairs and Attorney-General George Kunda at a public discussion organised by the Media Institute of Southern Africa Zambia Chapter, the government may not yet grasp the level of dissatisfaction over the issue.

In response to a question on the cars, foreign travel and the size of the cabinet, Kunda said: "Those cars are not even comfortable, they are just ordinary cars and I don't see why there's so much talk about them."

A member of the public had to tell Kunda that the comfort of the cars was not the issue, but their expense.

Ordinary Zambians do have some things going their way. Food inflation has reduced from 35 percent in December, at the height of a drought-induced food crisis that threatened 2.9 million people, to a record low of 21.9 percent, according to Citibank's monthly Treasury Newsletter.

Zambians can now buy a 25 kg bag of the staple maize meal for about $5, down from about $8 at the height of the food crisis.

But Mwanawasa's battles are not all economic. He is in a constitutional wrangle in parliament, where one-third of the 158 deputies have objected to his decision to appoint a former opposition leader as his vice-president, a move they say is illegal.

During the last three sittings of the house the opposition has walked out, leaving only their former party colleagues who have accepted positions in government, and six deputies from the United National Independence Party, now in alliance with the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy.

"Whichever way you look at the walkouts, one thing for sure is that it creates a crisis of confidence in his (Mwanawasa's) competence to govern and to bring the economy back on track, because it's a distraction he cannot avoid but has to live with," political analyst Robby Makayi told IRIN.

MOST ETHNO-NET AFRICA DATABASE

ZAMBIA / ZAMBIE