MAYORAL ELECTION WARS

By Gershom Ndhlovu

 

As a young boy growing up in Kwacha in Kitwe in the late 1960s and early 1970s, one day my friends and I were shepherded to one of the community welfare centres in the township where we were made to sing songs for a mayor who was coming to officiate at a function there. I cannot remember the name of the mayor neither do I remember what the function was.

One song’s refrain went something like “Abo baleisa bapala ba mayor wesu” loosely translated as “that one coming looks like our mayor” or something like that.

Then I did not even know what role a mayor played in the civic affairs of a city or town and I am sure that a lot other people in that part of the city did not also know the functions of a mayor, or if they knew, they did not care. All I can remember though is that we had running water 24/7, rubbish was collected at least twice a week, roads were regularly graded and street lights, like other social services, were functional. To me, and I am sure to other residents too, this was all that mattered.

Ever since the MMD came to power, the role of mayors and council chairmen has assumed an important but of course misplaced political aura that goes with the allocation, mostly illegally, of plots, being driven around in reconditioned but air conditioned Japanese second hand cars, welcoming the president and other dignitaries to the city or town and, above all, earning a cool allowance for it.

But go to Kwacha today, 44 years after independence, the place is in a sorry state worse than it was in 1978, 14 years after independence. It is an overgrown shanty compound with erratic water supply, roads look like the surface on Planet Mars, rubbish heaps on street corners are the order of the day, street lights stopped working eons ago, never mind the Zesco power cuts, and people build structures anyhow in terms of where there is open space and structure-wise.

This is true of all Zambia cities and towns, be it Ndola’s Masala township, Kabwe’s Lukanga township, Lusaka’s Matero, Livingstone’s Dambwa, name it. The mayors, and, indeed, whole local government authorities, turn a blind eye to all this for fear of upsetting their party supporters.

I know for a fact that there was a time between 1980 and 1991 when the Kaunda regime changed local government laws--it must have been during the era of decentralisation which I only have a vague memory of--replacing mayors with governors who assumed immense powers, except may be those of life and death, over the rest of residents of cities and towns.

Today, the issue of mayoral elections is assuming controversial proportions with the minister of local government and housing, Benny Tetamashimba unilaterally cancelling what is supposed to be an annual exercise with some obscure if feeble reasons. Meeting him head on is, of course, PF president Michael Sata, an Alderman of the city of Lusaka, former minister of state for decentralisation, former Lusaka Governor and former minister of local government and housing. A tall CV in the area of local government I would say. Backing him is former Lusaka City Council town clerk Wynter Kabimba.

It may appear that the Town Clerks supporting Tetamashimba’s decree are only doing so to protect their employment contracts because they may not have a legal leg to stand on. I only hope Attorney-General Mumba Malila’s advice is to the effect that Tetamashimba’s decision is ultra-vires the law.

Eleven years ago, or almost that long, in 1997 or thereabouts, President Chiluba when commissioning the Chinese-built housing complex in Masala Township, announced that plans were afoot to change the law to allow the election of mayors through adult suffrage but unfortunately, that was never implemented. I think it is time to pass such a law so that we, the residents, have a say on who is going to be the mayor of our cities and towns rather than him being elected by a bunch of partisan councillors.

This will put paid to the manipulation that goes on in the election of mayors in which trade offs and manipulation are part of the recipe and at the end of the day, the person elected has to pay back the debt to those who made him mayor. If the law changed, the mayor’s duty would be to repay the debt to the city’s residents who will have voted for him by ensuring that a council provides them with essential services. On this score, Chiluba had the right the idea although he never implemented it.

In the last few weeks, I had to deal with two cultural-related issues. The first was the 2008 Zambia Diaspora E-Conference which took place in October on themes ranging from Investment and Commerce, Human Capital, Land and Housing and Culture and Identity. I was privileged to be part of the Culture and Identity group which was ably chaired by Canada-based Chasaya Sichilima.

The second was a paper presented by Senior Chief Mwamba Kapalaula II to the Zambian Open University’s Forum Discussion entitled Culture: The Missing Dimensions in National Development a copy of which he kindly forwarded to me.

From these two mutually exclusive events, I concluded that culture has not been given the place it deserves in Zambia’s economic sphere and that is why it is divided in terms of administration between the ministry of tourism when it comes to traditional ceremonies such as Kuomboka and N’cwala, etc., and the ministry of community and social services under which the Department of Cultural Services falls.

What the Zambian government does not realise is that a cultural industry can flourish in the country irrespective of the so-called foreign direct investment or indeed other sectors such as mining and tourism, if only the right approach is taken for its development. Music is one area of the cultural industry that has shown capacity to develop and provide employment to a lot of people but without government support, cultural industries are doomed.

 

SADC SUB-REGION SHAKY

By Gershom Ndhlovu

 

Threats, insinuations, innuendoes and denials of an imminent attack on Zimbabwe, whatever the case is, it points to the fact that there is instability in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region as a result of the political situation in Zimbabwe.

Incidentally, not only has the SADC failed in resolving the problematic political situation in Zimbabwe, the African Union is also being dragged into the melee seeing that African countries outside of SADC, notably Kenya, are also calling for the removal of President Mugabe.

What worsens matters is the recent call by Britain, France and the United States of America for the removal of President Robert Mugabe by force if necessary. It is not a secret that there are alliances within SADC with some member countries in support of President Mugabe while others such as neighbouring Botswana, are unequivocal in the denunciation of the regime which they tame illegitimate.

Not that it would be unprecedented for any African country to raid another if only to get rid of a tyrannical leader. In 1979 Tanzania raided neighbouring Uganda to help oust the maniacal Idi Amin who had killed over 300,000 people during his eight year rein.

On the Comoro Islands, Colonel Mohammed Bacar, a French-trained former gendarme, seized power as President on the island of Anjouan in 2001. He staged a vote in June 2007 to confirm his leadership that was rejected as illegal by the Comoros federal government and the African Union.

On March 25, 2008 hundreds of soldiers from the African Union and Comoros seized rebel-held Anjouan, generally welcomed by the population.

In the West African sub-region, Economic Commission of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) forces intervened in a number of trouble spots, notably Sierra Leone and Liberia where civil wars raged in the 1990s and hundreds of thousands of people were killed and others displaced in the conflicts.

In 1998, a SADC military force rolled into Lesotho to intervene in the political crisis that was characterised by chronic political instability, failure to manage the process of demilitarisation and civil military relations effectively, as well as intra-party conflicts and political party fragmentation.

“The role, functions and legitimacy of the electoral management system were severely tested. Hence, from this perspective, the 1998 political crisis over the administration and outcome of the election was the most violent manifestation of a multifaceted political crisis with deep socio-economic roots in a stressed socio-political environment,” according to a monograph of the Franco-South African Dialogue compiled by Diane Philander.

Although Zimbabwe is teetering on the brink of collapse as a nation state because the current government is functioning on an ad hoc basis as a result of failure by President Mugabe to appoint a Cabinet in the wake of stalemate with the Morgan Tsvangirai faction of the Movement for Democratic Change, the situation in that country cannot technically be classified as a civil war but it is definitely akin to the Lesotho situation of 1998.

What needs to be done is to make Mugabe see sense on the need for him to honour the letter and spirit of the power-sharing agreement which was recently signed between himself and opposition leaders Tsvangirai and Mutambara.

Mugabe’s folly, however, is his desire to emasculate the other groups by denying them access to powerful ministries such as Home Affairs which holds the key to peace in that country.

The police together with other forces have not only harassed opposition leaders, they have also brutalised opposition supporters before the elections in March and the subsequent re-run in June, and after. Several hundreds of MDC supporters have been killed at the hands of the police and ZANU-PF supported militia.

Former South African president Thabo Mbeki who is the SADC appointed mediator in the Zimbabwean crisis does not equally help matters because of his naked biasness against Tsvangirai who won the first round of elections last March but was forced to withdraw from the election re-run because of violence perpetrated by ZANU-PF cadres against MDC supporters.

With a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions unfolding in Zimbabwe exacerbated by a cholera outbreak, inflation running into hundreds of millions percentage points and general food shortages, African leaders in particular and world leaders in general are complicit to what is happening in that country for failing to decisively intervene in the crisis and going by the Mbekian maxim of quiet diplomacy which has clearly failed the people of that beautiful country.

Zambians living abroad have learnt with a sense of shock and dismay that the government is in the process of changing passports and that holders of the old documents should change them by April next year.

Much as there is need for the change of old passports to new ones with enhanced security features, the suddenness with which the process is being conducted is illogical, to say the least. The changes with the concomitant costs should apply to new applicants and those whose passports are expiring rather than a blanket call for everyone to change the documents.

The Zambian authorities should understand the cost involved in changing passports for individuals and families and also the cost of obtaining visas in foreign countries and the general inconvenience of the process. This is not to mention the fact that some passport holders hold documents that were issued as recently as three months ago from the old batch.

This change of passports being foisted on the citizens could cost Zambians living in the UK up to £2,000 applying for new visas within a short time and in these days of the credit crunch, this is not a small amount.

Even then, the process of applying a passport both at home in Zambia and abroad can be stressful. Passports take ages to be sent to embassies and high commissions from where they are applied for and staff at these missions always blame the Passport Office in Lusaka for the delays.

One hopes that the new Home Affairs Minister, Dr Kalombo Mwansa will look into the concerns and change the modus operandi of the passport renewal exercise.

 

 

AFRICA NEEDS BETTER

By Gershom Ndhlovu

 

“African solutions for African problems.”

This is one refrain that has surely lost meaning in as much as it has been sung repeatedly by the likes of former South African president Thabo Mbeki who was given the task of mediating the Zimbabwe political crisis which has been brewing for close to ten years now.

Mbeki, one of the architects of the New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and its offshoot, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), has not been successful let alone been candid enough regarding the resolution of the Zimbabwean crisis.

He has the support of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and by extension, the African Union.

From his recent letter to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), he was always for resolving the crisis in favour of Mugabe and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU-PF). Today Zimbabwe is teetering on the brink of being a failed state, joining the ranks of the text book example, Somalia which has not had formal state institutions of governance for close to 20 years now.

Not at all strange, the Zimbabwe crisis has also exposed serious chasms between members such as Botswana which has out-rightly labelled the Mugabe regime illegitimate while others have closed ranks with the octogenarian ruler who led the violent struggle for independence and took over the reins of power three decades ago.

A cholera epidemic spreading along the length and breadth of Zimbabwe is the last straw that has unravelled all that has previously held the country together. Apart from the economy which is in its death throes with inflation galloping in hundreds of millions percentages, the education system crumbling with universities, colleges and boarding schools all but closed; a non-functioning health sector which is faced with a raging cholera epidemic that has claimed hundreds of lives while hospitals have no staff, drugs or equipment.

The Darfur crisis in Zimbabwe has also proved the futility of the Mbekian refrain of African solutions for African problems. This crisis has been going on for a long time now and the African Union efforts are as useful as an amputated limb. Darfurians continue dying at the hands of Sudanese government-supported Janjaweed militia.

No solution is in sight to this problem and today, Sudanese president Omar Bashir stands wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for crimes against humanity. This move by the international tribunal has not gone down well with the rest of Africa which still wants to protect villainous leaders who commit crimes against the very people they are supposed to serve.

Problems in the eastern Congo where militias from surrounding countries such as Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi have been battling for control of resources there have been raging for over a decade now.

The world is yet to see if the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region’s recent mediation effort in Burundi is successful considering that the ink on the recent agreement is not yet dry. The past agreements in that part of the world have failed to hold and this latest one may not be any different.

As much as Africa does not shy away from getting aid from western countries, it must also not shy away from criticism over the manner it handles its problems. It is outrageous for people like Mbeki to accuse groups like the MDC and its leader Morgan Tsvangirai of being western stooges. An African tyrant who brutalises his fellow Africans is worse.

It is in fact strange that Mbeki and other African leaders do not see anything wrong with those who loot their countries’ treasuries and exhibit bad governance tendencies.

It may appear that only global solutions will work for African problems because those charged with the task of solving African problem with African solutions equally have soiled hands.

 

Last week, someone signing himself as Nigerian Entrepreneur responded to my column as follows:

Every country has her own black sheep. While it is true that scammers who are Nigerian by citizenship are notorious in the international business world, it should be noted that there are many SINCERE, HONEST and INDUSTRIOUS Nigerians who earn their living by doing legitimate business. 

If such decides to invest in Zambia, they should be welcomed and not classified as "crooks" just because they are Nigerian by birth.

By the way, I do receive a lot of SCAM letters too because of my activities online. Here is a sample SCAM LETTER (reproduced below). However, many of them are from outside Nigeria (Asians to be specific).

Nice post. You may wish to educate your readers to investigate would-be Nigerian investors by reading this article How To Protect Yourself From Fraudsters (I will reproduce it next  week). It gives hints of what steps could be taken by an entrepreneur to prevent being defrauded.

I got here from Afrigator. Nice job you are doing here. Proudly African. Cheers.

 

Dear Customer: 


As part of our security measures, we regularly screen activity in the credit and debit cards system. During a recent screening, we noticed an issue regarding your account. Your account may have been accessed by an unauthorized third party.
As a precaution, we are requesting additional verification of your payment and personal information in order to protect your Wells Fargo account against unauthorized transactions.


Please send a fax with the following informations to remove any holds on this account. If we will not receive your fax within 24 hours your account will be temporary suspended.


Fax number: (408) 608-1896 


BILLING ADRESS:

-First name :
-Last name : 
-SSN :
-Address :
-City :
-Zip code :
-Phone number :
-E-mail address :


Account Information:

-Credit/Debit card number(16 digits numbers of your card):
-Expiration Date :
-Code Verification number(3 digits number of the back of your card):
-ATM PIN ( for bank customer verification):


For your security we deactivated your card account.

Sincerely,
Wells Fargo
Online Customer Service 

________________________________

Protect yourself from fraud and identity theft. To learn more, go to htttp://wellsfargo.com/privacy_security/fraud_prevention/

If you have a question about your account, please sign on to your secure online banking session at wellsfargo.com, click the Sign On button and then select "Contact Us."

NIGERIAN INVESTORS OR INFESTORS?

By Gershom Ndhlovu

 

As soon as I learnt that President Rupiah Banda had travelled to Nigeria and wooed investors from there, I rushed to my Spam box and came up with this letter, lots of which I receive weekly in any case.

 

OFFICE OF THE SENATE HOUSE
FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN PAYMENT
(RESOLUTION PANEL ON CONTRACT PAYMENT)
IKOYI-LAGOS NIGERIA
Our Ref: FGN /SNT/STB

Your Ref.

THIS IS TO OFFICIALLY INFORM YOU THAT WE HAVE VERIFIED YOUR INHERITANCE FILE AND FOUND OUT THAT WHY YOU HAVE NOT RECEIVED YOUR PAYMENT IS BECAUSE
YOU HAVE NOT FULFILLED THE OBLIGATIONS GIVEN TO YOU IN RESPECT OF YOUR CONTRACT/INHERITANCE PAYMENT.

SECONDLY WE HAVE BEEN INFORMED THAT YOU ARE STILL DEALING WITH THE NONE OFFICIALS IN THE BANK YOUR ENTIRE ATTEMPT TO SECURE THE RELEASE OF THE FUND TO YOU. WE WISH TO ADVISE YOU THAT SUCH AN ILLEGAL ACT LIKE THESE HAVE TO STOP IF YOU WISH TO RECEIVE YOUR PAYMENT SINCE WE HAVE DECIDED TO BRING A SOLUTION TO YOUR PROBLEM.

RIGHT NOW WE HAVE ARRANGED YOUR PAYMENT THROUGH OUR SWIFT CARD PAYMENT CENTER ASIA PACIFIC THAT IS THE LATEST INSTRUCTION FROM MR. PRESIDENT, UMARU YAR'ADUA (GCFR) FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA AND FBI.

THIS CARD CENTER WILL SEND YOU AN ATM CARD WHICH YOU WILL USE TO WITHDRAW YOUR MONEY IN ANY ATM MACHINE IN ANY PART OF THE WORLD, BUT THE MAXIMUM IS
FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS PER DAY, SO IF YOU LIKE TO RECEIVE YOUR FUND THIS WAY PLEASE LET US KNOW BY CONTACTING THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUNDS
DEPARTMENT CARD PAYMENT CENTER.

AND ALSO SEND THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION: TO ATM SWIFT CARD REMITTANCE CENTER MR. MCFERRIN  PHOENIX FOR CLAIMS.

1. YOUR FULL NAME:
2. PHONE AND FAX NUMBER:
3. ADDRESS WERE YOU WANT THEM TO SEND THE ATM CARD:
4. YOUR AGE AND CURRENT OCCUPATION
5.YOU COUNTRY

ATM SWIFT CARD REMITTANCE CENTER
MR. MCFERRIN PHOENIX
EMAIL ADDRESS; paymentcenteratmcardoffice@yahoo.com.hk

THE ATM CARD PAYMENT CENTER HAS BEEN MANDATED TO ISSUE OUT {800,000.00USD} AS PART PAYMENT FOR THIS FISCAL YEAR 2008.

ALSO FOR YOUR INFORMATION, YOU HAVE TO STOP ANY FURTHER COMMUNICATION WITH ANY OTHER PERSON(S) OR OFFICE(S) TO AVOID ANY HITCHES IN RECEIVING YOUR
PAYMENT.FOR ORAL DISCUSSION, EMAIL ME BACK AS SOON AS YOU RECEIVE THIS IMPORTANT MESSAGE OR FURTHER DIRECTION AND ALSO UPDATE ME ON ANY DEVELOPMENT FROM THE ABOVE-MENTIONED OFFICE.
NOTE: THAT BECAUSE OF IMPOSTORS, WE HEREBY ISSUED YOU OUR CODE OF CONDUCT, WHICH IS (ATM-822) SO YOU HAVE TO INDICATE THIS CODE WHEN CONTACTING THE CARD CENTER BY USING IT AS YOUR SUBJECT.

KINDEST REGARDS,
MR.DAVID MARK.
SENATE PRESIDENT.

 

It is not my intention to bring in the name of Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, a man I admire for the stand he has taken in cleaning up Nigerian society, dented as the most corrupt not only on the continent of Africa, but the world over.

It is, however, my intention to warn the Zambian government that as it tries to woo Nigerian investors, it should be mindful of the fact that there is great potential that Nigerian crooks situated all over the world, could seize Zambia’s desperation for investors as an opportunity to use the country as a money launderers’ playground.

While not saying that all Nigerians are crooks, governments around the world warn their citizens of what has come to be known as “Decree 419” scams in which people, particularly in the West, are targeted with prospects similar to the letter above, juicy investments that are in reality, non-existent or simply lotteries for which people are informed they have won when they never even entered them.

I do not know how strong Zambia’s monitoring capacity for laundered money is, but it should be particularly sensitive on investment coming from Nigeria as sources for those funds could be dubious.

According to one website on crimes of persuasion, schemes, scams and fraud: “Indications are that this advance fee fraud grosses hundreds of millions of dollars annually and the losses are continuing to escalate. The large sums involved in financial criminal activity in Nigeria have resulted in a situation where criminals are better funded than the law enforcement agencies.

“The Nigerian Government blames the growing problem on mass unemployment, extended family systems, a get rich quick syndrome, and, especially, the greed of foreigners.”

The best the Zambian government can do, instead of a desperate search for investors even from countries where citizens are not very straight-forward in their dealings in most of the things, is to try and harness local capital. Who does not know that well known and established local investors like Enoch Kavindele, a former vice-president for that matter, are treated like lepers?

Even as I concluded this article, I received another letter from one Mr Umaru Aziz claiming to be from the African Development Bank offering to channel US$15 million belonging to a Jordanian into my account and share the funds once they are secure.

Are these the type of investors we want? I doubt it.

Zamtel seems to be tottering on the brink of collapse. The simple reason is that it operates in analogue mode, literary.

Zamtel does not seem to be changing with times by switching to digital mode to which other similar service providers are have switched to or are switching to. The government supported phone service provider wants to stick to the point-to-point service while treating the mobile service as a mere side bar.

With its infrastructure, Zamtel could vigorously join the fray in the provision of television services in areas not yet reached by ZNBC and MNET. Similarly, it could make internet service provision a strong business point, again with the background that it has reach in Kaputa, Shangombo and Chavuma.

But even with its CellZ service, UK mobile phone users have difficulties texting CellZ customers unless they are Orange phone service users. Orange itself cannot be compared to big service providers such as O2, Vodafone and Virgin.

Mr Mukela Muyunda, Zamtel acting CEO, please think about some of these things otherwise your company will still be existing in the 1950s mode when we are hurtling towards the mid-2000s with advanced information and communication technologies.