. Fr Luonde

By CHARLES SIMENGWA –

ANGLICAN priest Richard Luonde has inarguably been jostling for visibility in national discourse, but along the way he has muddled up important facts.
In a poor attempt to pour scorn on President Edgar Lungu and his administration, the Kitwe-based cleric has packed his statements with political chicanery, devoid of sincerity.
He has been forceful in leading the assault on Government, but the paucity of truthfulness in Father Luonde’s grandstanding has made him flounder on such critical details as figures on lost jobs in the mines.
One could cite his most recent statement in some sections of the media that the job losses in the mines on the Copperbelt are ‘historic’, which exposes the falsity of his claim.
Historic in this sense could imply that this is the largest scale of job cuts in Zambia’s mining history.
It is an acknowledged fact that some miners at Mopani Copper Mines and Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) have lost their jobs owing to the fallen copper prices on the international market, and this will have a profound impact on the lives of the retrenched workers.
Mopani has offloaded 3,050 workers, while Luanshya Copper Mines management which had intended to retrench over 1,000 employees has shelved the decision.
About 1,640 workers at LCM were sent on forced leave in September following the decision to place Baluba Shaft on care and maintenance, but all that changed when the President intervened in the matter.
At KCM where the Nchanga underground mine has been placed on care and maintenance, 1, 675 contract workers have been laid off.
According to a company spokesperson, a further 825 workers are likely to be sent home in the next three months if production remains low.
But contrary to Fr Luonde’s charges, the number of jobs that have been lost this year pales in comparison with those sacrificed after the privatisation of the mines by the MMD Government in the early 1990s.
An examination of available records shows that Luanshya alone lost close to 6,000 jobs, and the desolation that followed earned the area the moniker of ‘ghost town’.
There were serious social ramifications on the Copperbelt that came on the heels of privatisation which, to date, has widely been criticised as a flawed exercise.
In October 2004, late President Levy Mwanawasa acknowledged in an interview with the BBC that the privatisation process in the first decade of the MMD reign lacked “a human face” and had disastrous results.
Mr Mwanawasa said while privatisation was not a wrong decision, the process used was wrong as it overlooked certain issues which left thousands of workers, particularly on the Copperbelt, jobless.
“The process should have taken into account issues of employment and what would happen to people who were to lose jobs,” he said.
A structured privatisation programme started in July 1992 with the enactment of the Privatisation Act of 1992.
After unseating the Kenneth Kaunda-led UNIP, in power from 1964 to 1991, the MMD administration under the late President Frederick Chiluba adopted a rapid liberalisation strategy with the aim of reforming the economy which had suffered a sharp deterioration.
The privatisation drive was not without consequences. Data from the 2000 census shows shifts in regional livelihood diversification patterns, with the economically active in mining falling from 3.4 per cent of the country’s total labour force in 1990 to 1.3 per cent in 2000.
In a February 2014 research paper, Patience Ntelamo Mususa noted that following the privatisation of the mines, the Copperbelt witnessed acute urban poverty that, retrenchments and withdrawal of social welfare services.
The full extent of social welfare provision by the Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM) mines was well captured in a 2000 Rights and Accountability in Development report that estimated the social cost of the privatisation of the mines.
According to the estimates of the report, in the early 1990s the large ZCCM mine divisions such as Luanshya were spending approximately US$20 million a year on social welfare.
After a lengthy debate on whether the mines should be sold and, if so, whether as a whole or broken up in parts, the mines were eventually offered as “unbundled” units.
Thus the sale of mining divisions of the ZCCM started in 1995 with the sale of the Luanshya mine to the Binani Group.
This was not a transparent process as was dogged with allegations of corruption.
At the time, an estimated two-thirds of the ZCCM work force was laid off. Without enough money to pay retrenchment benefits, the state opted to sell the mine housing stock to sitting tenants, most of them mine employees.
A cash benefit package for the retrenched miners was, in most cases, paid after a delay of three years.
Many Luanshya residents remember this period as one of extreme suffering, with families resorting to eating mangoes, and looking for wild fruit in the nearby forests.
The May 1995 edition of the Africa Research Bulletin quoted Dr Kaunda, who had resolved to return to power, as having said “the rural areas are devastated, our agriculture has gone, and in the urban areas 200, 000 of 350, 000 jobs have disappeared.”
Neo Simutanyi, in a July 2008 research paper carrying the title ‘Copper mining in Zambia: The developmental legacy of privatisation’, wrote that while the contribution of the copper mining sector to Zambia’s gross domestic product declined by more than 100 per cent in the 1970s (from 36 per cent in 1970 to just 13 per cent in 1975), the importance of the industry to export revenue remained significant as it averaged 94 per cent from 1970 to 1980.
But the industry’s contribution to Government revenue saw a drastic decline from around 58 per cent in 1970 to only three per cent in 1976.
It contributed nothing at all during most of the remainder of the 1970s and 1980s. As the Zambian economy experienced a prolonged recession in the 1980s, worsened by balance of payment deficits and reduced earnings from the copper industry, the Government sought assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
However, the loans it was granted were tied to specific conditions, including devaluation of the country’s currency, trade liberalisation, reduction in the mine labour force and a general wage freeze.
In 1984 the Government implemented most of the recommendations proposed by the IMF and the World Bank.
For the mining industry, the measures included a reduction in the labour force from an estimated 66,000 in 1976 to 51,000 in 1986.
This was done by way of retrenchment, voluntary retirement and dismissals.
The crisis occasioned by the poor performance of the copper industry was felt in Zambia’s inability to finance social welfare programmes, such as education and health.
People’s living standards deteriorated and real income dropped as hyperinflation reduced the purchasing power of wages.
Shortages of essential commodities were the order of the day. As a result of these developments, workers’ protests, through strikes and demonstrations, were frequent.
In December 1986 there were food riots on the Copperbelt and parts of Lusaka as a result of an increase in the price of maize meal.
At least 28 people were killed by riot police, while unionised workers went on strike demanding increased pay and improved conditions.
Zambia’s fiscal crisis coincided with the adoption of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) encouraged by the World Bank and IMF.
These SAP measures included, among others, the removal of subsidies, trade liberalisation and reduced role of the State in the economy.
As ZCCM was loss making, the Government offered it large subsidies.
However, as it remained the major foreign exchange earner in the economy, the one-party State, under Dr Kaunda, directed ZCCM to provide social services in mine areas which the Government was no longer able to provide on a large scale.
Despite performing poorly, the mining conglomerate continued to provide social services to mine communities even when the economy was in a crisis.
Towards the end of the 1980s, ZCCM took up several responsibilities that the State was no longer able to fulfill effectively, such as the provision of health and educational services, tourism, transport and farming.
The collapse of the Zambian economy in the 1980s was intimately related to the poor performance of the copper mining industry.
Some unprofitable mines and shafts were shut down in Ndola, Mufulira, Luanshya and Chililabombwe.
This went hand in hand with the downsizing of mine labour and the scaling down of ZCCM’s social responsibilities to the communities.
As more miners lost their jobs, there was a growing dissatisfaction with the UNIP Government.
UNIP’s political legitimacy was severely undermined by the economic crisis that saw the copper industry no longer able to provide employment to the majority of the Zambian labour force or act as the engine of growth for the entire economy.
Brenda Mofya and Brighton Lubansa, writing in ‘Privatisation of the mining sector in Zambia: The case of Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines’, indicated that by virtue of providing at least 80 per cent of Zambia’s foreign earnings and being the country’s largest single employer, ZCCM was the most important of the nationalised enterprises.
According to one analysis, the sale of ZCCM registered a number of positive results. For example, the sale mobilised the Zambian citizens, especially former employees of mining companies and industries that had provided social benefits, and created jobs and trading opportunities for the local people.
The potential of the mining sector was unlocked where the industry had previously suffered due to lack of investment and technological innovation.
Quality and standards of Zambian copper increased on the global market, and the country saw a greater influx of capital from foreign investors.
ZCCM’s sale also reduced Government expenditure and was considered to have brought Zambia into an era of economic resuscitation and investment opportunities.
However, Transparency International Zambia argued in 1999 that the sale was in many aspects a “looting exercise”, a claim which may reflect the findings of a survey of the local community on the privatisation of ZCCM.
The results showed that for the majority of Zambians, the sale of ZCCM had brought hardships and a decline in economic and social development.
Following negotiations, prospective mine owners agreed to provide employment to the existing labour force, to avoid immediate redundancies and to provide high-calibre management and training opportunities to employees.
However, one of the commonest characteristics of the privatised mines was massive job losses as a result of retrenchment and redundancy programmes, as well as closures in the case of Minerva and RAMCOZ.
In the run-up to the final sale of ZCCM, a total of 8, 329 employees were declared redundant as of December 31, 1999.
The Minerva closure resulted in redundancies of all the 150 workers, while the RAMCOZ failure affected more than 4, 000 employees.
This background renders Fr Luonde’s argument that the job losses in the mines are historic baseless and fallacious.
To further illustrate Government’s resolve to cushion the miners from the effects of retrenchment, President Lungu has successfully negotiated with two commercial banks for a debt write-off.
Some miners owed the banks various amounts after acquiring loans, but were left stranded after the retrenchments as the banks indicated that they would withhold the benefits to recover the debts.
Special Assistant to the President for Press and Public Relations, Amos Chanda said Mr Lungu had negotiated with the banks to cancel the debts, a move that has elated the Mineworkers Union of Zambia.
It is, therefore, important for Fr Luonde and others who are desperate to buttress their arguments with wrong facts to learn to communicate correct information to the public.