David Mubita defied tradition to get circumcised for protection against HIV. Credit: Lewis Mwanangombe

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, Mar 3 2014 (IPS)

David Mubita has long been known in the family as a fool for starting trouble. The latest was getting circumcised secretly and nearly cast out by Grandfather Ndumwa. But Mubita may turn out to be the wisest in the family.

The Lozi people of Western Zambia cherish their traditions. So, when Mubita decided to go for circumcision early in 2013, he not only broke tradition but brought shame on the family."Our region, East and Southern Africa, needs more male circumcision because it is the epicentre of the HIV and AIDS pandemic." -- Chief Mumena

In Zambia, circumcision is practiced by the Luvale and the Lunda people of North-Western Province, by Muslims and by the small Jewish community. But not by the Lozi, who call it buhole – a disability.

“I thought he was joking.  Why would a normal man go for circumcision if he is not a Luvale?” observed his elder brother Lubinda.

Mubita, 26, is unrepentant: “I heard it on radio and did it for my own protection.  I have no regrets – look at all the people who are dying [of AIDS]. You have to be brave to change tradition.”

But that is not how Grandfather Ndumwa saw it.  As headman of Kandiana village, he saw Mubita’s circumcision as a brazen challenge of his authority.

“He cut it for whom?” Ndumwa asked angrily when he heard the news. “If he is tired of living with us, he can leave this village now. Should we be Ma-Wiko because of him?”

Ma-Wiko is a pejorative term for people from neighbouring Angola, where circumcision is nearly universal.

Mubita fled temporarily to Lusaka until things calmed down.

A polemic snip

The tension between Mubita and Ndumwa is an example of the difficulties health officials face in Western Zambia, where the national campaign to promote voluntary male circumcision has not been welcome.

The target is to circumcise 2.5 million men aged 13-39 by 2020, averting 340,000 new HIV infections. More than 250,000 male circumcisions were performed in 2012 and the target for 2013 was 300,000 by end December. In August, designated circumcision month, 30,000 men underwent the procedure.

Studies have shown that male circumcision can reduce the risk of contracting HIV by 60 percent.

The national HIV prevalence rate in Zambia is 13 percent, one of the highest in the world. It is even higher in the Western Province at 15 percent.

Male circumcision also protects from male-to-female transmission of the human papilloma virus (HPV), the virus that causes cervical cancer.

David Linyama, a medical doctor at Lusaka’s University Teaching Hospital, Zambia’s biggest referral medical centre, explained to IPS that male circumcision is a simple procedure. “It takes no more than 20 minutes to perform,” he said.

“It was not complicated. They gave me an injection to make my thing numb and within ten minutes it was over,” said Mubita, who is married and has a son and a daughter.

He was in pain for four days and abstained from sex for four weeks to allow the wound to heal.

“It was worthwhile because now I am safe. Esther [his wife] is happy because I won’t give her HPV,” he added. He emphasised that circumcision is not a licence to have multiple sex partners. Safe sex is still needed.

Back in Kandiana, people talk openly about his circumcision. Men show disgust, boys look at him in awe, and women comment behind his back.

But Mubita’s bold step is the spark that started the fire in Kandiana.

It happened just as government rolled out its mass male circumcision campaign with radio jingles, television sketches, street posters, a toll-free telephone line and a webpage.

Two chiefs from outside Western Province have stoked the fire by revealing they have been recently circumcised. Chief Mumena, leader of the non-circumcising Kaonde tribe, stunned the nation by revealing that he had volunteered for the snip at age 47.

“Our region, East and Southern Africa, needs more male circumcision because it is the epicentre of the HIV and AIDS pandemic,” Chief Mumena said.

In October 2013, Chief Chanje, of the Tumbuka in the Eastern Province, went for circumcision.  And Chief Nondo, of the Mambwe people of Northern Province, has endorsed these moves.

Of course, Chief Mdungu, of the Luvale people, says this is the way to go. His tribe circumcises boys at puberty in annual camps known as mukanda.

No Lozi chief in Western Province has said anything in support of male circumcision yet. But Mubita has no doubt that it is only a matter of time.

“I am sure that even the old man [Grandpa Ndumwa], if he lives long, will be tempted to go for male circumcision!” Mubita chuckles.

The Luapula River is the only source of drinking water for the people in Nkonde village. Credit: Lewis Mwanangombe/IPS

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, Jun 7 2012 (IPS)

Bupe Bana-Victor has lived in the Mwense district of Luapula Province in northern Zambia all her life. And for her, water talk is synonymous with the Luapula River, which lies just 20 metres from her village and snakes through the entire region before it joins the Lualaba River – a tributary of the mighty Congo, Africa’s second-largest river.

In the 45-year-old’s treasure of knowledge lies information about the finicky nature of this river. She knows that in the lean, dry months from May to October it shrinks to a mere ribbon.

But when the heavy rains fall in November, the river recovers dramatically and swells to the fatness of a well-fed python. In November, it overflows its banks and spills onto the doorways of the houses in Nkonde village, where Bana-Victor lives.

It is a time when the women of the village can draw the river’s dirty water by literally opening their doors.

But using the river as a household water supply is not a choice for those who live here. It is their only option because Nkonde village, like most of rural Zambia, does not have access to potable water.

The United Nations Children’s Fund estimates that about 4.8 million of the country’s 13 million people do not have access to safe drinking water. The organisation also notes that roughly half the country’s population, about 6.6 million people, are without access to proper sanitation.

However, drinking river water is not a safe practice. Indeed, the Luapula River is fraught with danger and disease and is infested with black flies, which harbour a parasite known as nematode or roundworm. When these parasites are transmitted to a human they cause River Blindness.

The Luapula River is also home to snails that cause Bilharzia, a tropical disease that causes one’s skin to itch. Other symptoms include diarrhoea, fever, vomiting and blood in the urine.

As a mother and grandmother, Bana-Victor knows all about these dangers. But she had hoped that after the Patriotic Front (PF) was elected to government in September 2011 her village would soon be given access to clean drinking water.

In the election campaign, President Michael Sata’s PF had promised to provide hand pumps and community latrines to those who lacked them. The party also promised that within 90 days of the new government’s taking office, people in rural areas would have access to safe drinking water.

But now, almost nine months later, Bana-Victor wonders if the commitment to change the lives of those living in rural Zambia will ever materialise.

However, Professor Nkandu Luo, minister of local government, early education and environment protection, is optimistic that her government will still turn its promises into a reality.

“Inadequate access to clean water and basic sanitation must be effectively addressed if Zambia is to improve the lives of its people,” she said.

Luo told IPS that the government has earmarked 360 million dollars that will be used to provide improved sources of water and sanitation in both urban and rural areas for five million people over the next three years. The government hopes to completely eradicate the use of scoop holes (shallow wells dug in the ground), springs, rivers, streams and lakes as supplies of drinking water.

Twenty-four million dollars will be allocated to Luapula and Northern Provinces under the National Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Programme, which provides clean water and sanitation to rural areas.

Victor Muyeba, socio-economist for the Devolution Trust Fund, a financing institution that receives funding from the government to facilitate the implementation of sustainable water and sanitation supply services, believes that Zambian women deserve help.
“You cannot have food security without having clean and safe water. Unsafe water affects the health of the people. It deprives women and girls, who provide clean water to their households, of time and energy which they could use to improve food security,” Muyeba said.

But it appears that the new government is serious about providing access to clean water for all. In the government’s 2012 fiscal budget, it allocated about 30 million dollars for the provision of clean water and sanitation.

“About 30 million dollars has been provided as government’s contribution to the water and sanitation sector, representing an increase of 26.1 percent from the 2011 provision (by the previous administration). The funds will be used to improve access to clean and safe drinking water in rural and peri-urban areas,” Finance and National Planning Minister Alexander Chikwanda told parliament when he unveiled his national budget in November 2011.

Meanwhile, Bana-Victor will continue to draw drinking water from the Luapula River.

By Lewis Mwanangombe and - -
LUSAKA, Feb 29 2012 (IPS)

Eight years ago when Mary Sitali’s husband divorced her, by sending a traditional letter to her parents saying that he no longer wanted her and they could “marry her to any man of your choice – be he a tall or a short man, the choice being entirely yours,” she returned to her village in rural Zambia with their two children and no way of supporting them.

The Barotse Flood Plain, about 190 kilometres long and 70 km wide, floods during the peak rainy season that starts in late January. Credit: Lewis Mwanangombe/IPS

The village is on the fringes of the Barotse Flood Plain, about 190 kilometres long and 70 km wide, which floods during the peak rainy season that starts in late January.

One of the pieces of land that Sitali’s father let her farm was near this flood plain and she was able to plant the traditional rice seed known locally as “Angola”.

The second offer of marriage never came. But through her efforts as a rice farmer Sitali was able to partially support her children, her mother, and even her late brother’s three children.

For this reason it has always been outside the basket of crops that receive farm subsidies from the government.

But Sitali is a member of the Nañoko Cooperative Association, which negotiates for farm support for its members from both the government and civil society. It is one of the more than 87 such cooperative associations in the country to which women farmers belong.

According to government statistics, more than 1.5 million women work in agriculture, either as paid employees or as small-scale farmers. Most are semi-illiterate or illiterate and have no formal training in farming practices.

However, NGOs like Concern Worldwide, Civil Society for Poverty Reduction, Pelum Association, Keepers Zambia Foundation, Action-Aid International, Oxfam International and many others support Zambia’s women farmers with training, seed, fertilisers, farm animals and implements. And now the government has started subsidising rice farmers.

“Under the government’s Farmer Input Support Programme we now give rice farmers two bags of subsidised chemical fertilisers – one basal, and a top dressing… They are also given a 10 kilogramme pocket of rice seed,” George Muleta, a field officer for the Ministry of Agriculture, said. On the open market fertilisers can sell for as much as 37 dollars for a 50 kg bag, but with the subsidy it only costs 10 dollars.

The Western Province is the poorest region in Zambia, according to the country’s 2000 national census. Here there are almost two million households, and women like Sitali, who are either divorced, widowed or unmarried, head up to 19 percent of these homes.

And 13,750 women in this province are currently engaged in rice farming, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

Patrick Chibbamulilo, senior programme officer at the Japan International Cooperation Agency, said that between 1988 to 2008 Zambia’s national rice harvest grew from about 9,293 metric tonnes to about 24,023. But in only three years from 2007 to 2010 it jumped from 18,317 metric tonnes to 53,000 – a leap of about 288 percent.

Rice farming in Zambia is still rudimentary as the yield per hectare is only 1.44 metric tonnes, compared to the African average of 2.5 metric tonnes per hectare and the world average of 4.15 tonnes per hectare, according to records at the International Rice Research Institute.

For the women in Western Province, farming maize has not been a viable option because the soil here does not support its growth. While it can grow on the flood plain it will be washed away by the seasonal floodwaters from January to May before it matures.

But Sitali and other women here have now benefited from the introduction of a new seed variety of wheat, locally called Nduna.

“We used to go hungry in the lean months of September, October and November – before the mangoes ripen,” Sitali said. “But not anymore, and all thanks to Nduna.”

Nduna, in the local Silozi language of the province, is the title of a traditional leader but the Ministry of Agriculture introduced a wheat seed variety of the same name in 2010. And it was developed specifically for the wetlands of Western Zambia, Muleta explained.

“The introduction of wheat as a second crop has really helped us. Otherwise we would have died of hunger. It has really put money in our pockets,” Butete Biemba, a rice farmer from Ushaa village in Western Province, said. Like Sitali she is a single mother looking after a family of six, after her husband died of HIV/AIDS. She is also a member of the Nañoko Cooperative Association.

Now both Sitali and Biemba earn 60 cents per kg for their wheat. It is more than twice the amount they can sell their rice for, which goes for 25 cents per kg at harvest time.

“Unlike rice, wheat does not require so much water to grow. Just the wetness in the soil is good enough for the crop. And the great thing is that by September all the wheat would have been harvested, leaving the farmers time in which to prepare their fields for the next rice planting season,” Muleta said.

Excerpt:

Eight years ago when Mary Sitali’s husband divorced her, by sending a traditional letter to her parents saying that he no longer wanted her and they could “marry her to any man of your choice – be he a tall or a short man, the choice being entirely yours,” she returned to her village in rural Zambia with their two children and no way of supporting them.

The Barotse Flood Plain, about 190 kilometres long and 70 km wide, floods during the peak rainy season that starts in late January. Credit:Lewis Mwanangombe/IPS

At home in Kandiana village, in Zambia’s Western Province, her late father allowed her to farm his two pieces of land, about a quarter of a hectare each, while the then 51-year-old Sitali waited for another man to marry her, and while her father continued to maintain ownership of the land.

The village is on the fringes of the Barotse Flood Plain, about 190 kilometres long and 70 km wide, which floods during the peak rainy season that starts in late January.

One of the pieces of land that Sitali’s father let her farm was near this flood plain and she was able to plant the traditional rice seed known locally as “Angola”.

The second offer of marriage never came. But through her efforts as a rice farmer Sitali was able to partially support her children, her mother, and even her late brother’s three children.

But Sitali is what the NGO Concern Worldwide describes as a “marginal farmer” because although she works hard, the food she produces is usually not enough to feed her family for the whole year. Other women farmers like Sitali have also had to endure months of hunger, especially towards the beginning and end of the harvest.

Rice has never been a serious cash crop in Zambia, despite its ability to alleviate poverty and chronic hunger. In the 2010 harvest statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture it does not feature among the country’s top 10 cash crops, which include maize, cassava, wheat – predominantly cash crops for white commercial farmers – and groundnuts.

For this reason it has always been outside the basket of crops that receive farm subsidies from the government.

But Sitali is a member of the Nañoko Cooperative Association, which negotiates for farm support for its members from both the government and civil society. It is one of the more than 87 such cooperative associations in the country to which women farmers belong.

According to government statistics, more than 1.5 million women work in agriculture, either as paid employees or as small-scale farmers. Most are semi-illiterate or illiterate and have no formal training in farming practices.

However, NGOs like Concern Worldwide, Civil Society for Poverty Reduction, Pelum Association, Keepers Zambia Foundation, Action-Aid International, Oxfam International and many others support Zambia’s women farmers with training, seed, fertilisers, farm animals and implements. And now the government has started subsidising rice farmers.

“Under the government’s Farmer Input Support Programme we now give rice farmers two bags of subsidised chemical fertilisers – one basal, and a top dressing… They are also given a 10 kilogramme pocket of rice seed,” George Muleta, a field officer for the Ministry of Agriculture, said. On the open market fertilisers can sell for as much as 37 dollars for a 50 kg bag, but with the subsidy it only costs 10 dollars.

The Western Province is the poorest region in Zambia, according to the country’s 2000 national census. Here there are almost two million households, and women like Sitali, who are either divorced, widowed or unmarried, head up to 19 percent of these homes.

And 13,750 women in this province are currently engaged in rice farming, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

Patrick Chibbamulilo, senior programme officer at the Japan International Cooperation Agency, said that between 1988 to 2008 Zambia’s national rice harvest grew from about 9,293 metric tonnes to about 24,023. But in only three years from 2007 to 2010 it jumped from 18,317 metric tonnes to 53,000 – a leap of about 288 percent.

Rice farming in Zambia is still rudimentary as the yield per hectare is only 1.44 metric tonnes, compared to the African average of 2.5 metric tonnes per hectare and the world average of 4.15 tonnes per hectare, according to records at the International Rice Research Institute.

For the women in Western Province, farming maize has not been a viable option because the soil here does not support its growth. While it can grow on the flood plain it will be washed away by the seasonal floodwaters from January to May before it matures.

But Sitali and other women here have now benefited from the introduction of a new seed variety of wheat, locally called Nduna.

“We used to go hungry in the lean months of September, October and November – before the mangoes ripen,” Sitali said. “But not anymore, and all thanks to Nduna.”

Nduna, in the local Silozi language of the province, is the title of a traditional leader but the Ministry of Agriculture introduced a wheat seed variety of the same name in 2010. And it was developed specifically for the wetlands of Western Zambia, Muleta explained.

“The introduction of wheat as a second crop has really helped us. Otherwise we would have died of hunger. It has really put money in our pockets,” Butete Biemba, a rice farmer from Ushaa village in Western Province, said. Like Sitali she is a single mother looking after a family of six, after her husband died of HIV/AIDS. She is also a member of the Nañoko Cooperative Association.

Now both Sitali and Biemba earn 60 cents per kg for their wheat. It is more than twice the amount they can sell their rice for, which goes for 25 cents per kg at harvest time.

“Unlike rice, wheat does not require so much water to grow. Just the wetness in the soil is good enough for the crop. And the great thing is that by September all the wheat would have been harvested, leaving the farmers time in which to prepare their fields for the next rice planting season,” Muleta said. (END)

Zhang Daliu, 46, a carpenter from China never imagined himself in the dreadful confines of a stinking and overcrowded Zambian jail where conditions are so terrible that they lead to gastronomic disorders and skin diseases within days of confinement.

A copper mine in Zambia. When Luanshya’s copper mine closed in 2000 more than 6,000 people lost their jobs, triggering massive poverty. Credit: Blue Salo/Wikicommons

But that is how the dice has fallen for Zhang and three other expatriate Chinese artisans: Hong Pin Liu, 46, a carpenter; Yang Gang Qiang, 36, a welder; and Zhu Xiang, 51, a bricklayer.

The four men are facing a possible life imprisonment should they be convicted of indecent assault and sex with a minor, after charges were brought against them by prosecutors in Luanshya, a town on the southern fringes of Zambia’s mineral-rich Copperbelt Province. Each charge carries a minimum jail term of 15 years with hard labour, with a maximum life sentence.

The four men are accused of having sex with young girls under the age of 16, the legal age of consent in Zambia, in exchange for money.

This sex scandal has started a heated debate in this Southern African country, with some accusing the girls of bringing shame on Zambians by turning to prostitution at such an early age.

Others feel that the problems of poverty and desperation prevalent in Luanshya, which forced the young girls into prostitution, first began during the corrupt regime of former President Frederick Chiluba. Chiluba sold Luanshya’s copper mine in 1997 to the Indian Binani Industries for just 35 million dollars during the privatisation of the country’s mines.

Barely three years after the sale, it fell under receivership and more than 6,000 miners lost their jobs. This triggered massive poverty and hardship in Luanshya, and for the next six years few could afford to feed themselves and their families.

In 2009, when China Non-Ferrous Metals Mining Group acquired the mine, many of those in Luanshya were living in dire poverty. While the sale of the mine meant that there would be jobs again, it also led to the influx of Chinese workers.

The Chinese mine workers, contracted by the Luanshya Copper Mine to revive the former Roan Antelope Mining Corporation (Zambia) copper mine and developing the new Muliashi opencast copper mine, landed in Zambia with a contingent of 270 men, and no women.

Zambia is home to more than 80,000 Chinese of an estimated population of 925,000 Chinese now living and working in Africa, the majority of whom are men working in various jobs in urban and rural areas. In these tough economic times the Chinese here became seen as the only ones with money to spend.

Mary Mumba is a housewife who has lived for more than 20 years in Roan Township, the sprawling high-density mine suburb in Luanshya. She has witnessed the degenerated of the town into a haven for prostitutes, copper thieves and drunken layabouts.

She understands why the young girls offered the men sex in exchange for money.

“Many families here are poor and they will usually go for days without a meal. As parents living in poverty we understand why these girls went so far as to give in to the Chinese. They are the only people with real money in this town,” Mumba complained.

Another resident, Rhoyda Musonda, blamed poverty and the girls’ parents for the scandal.

“We are to blame. These girls were not forced by the Chinese to have sex with them. But as parents I am sure they saw (the girls buy) unusual things, which they could not afford. This should have warned them,” she said.

But Gift Mulenga, a miner in the town, is indifferent about the scandal. He said that here most poverty- stricken young women and girls prostitute themselves to men who have money to spend, regardless of nationality.

“The Chinese just happened to be men of a wrong nationality, that is all,” Mulenga scoffed.

And Mulenga may seem to be right. The rape of minors has increased in Zambia in recent years and mostly Zambian men have been charged with crimes.

Policemen at the Zambia Police Service’s Victim Support Unit said that the rape of minors has increased from 1,676 in 2009 to 2,028 in 2010.

Perpetrators include Zambian teachers, farmers, traditional medicine men and even policemen themselves.

Last year three teachers were suspended from the Ndola Girls’ Technical High School, in Copperbelt Province, for having sex with their underage pupils. In the northern district of Milenge, in Luapula Province, a 75-year-old man was charged with raping an eight-year-old girl.

The increased number of cases has led the umbrella grouping for gender activists in Zambia, the Non- Governmental Organizations Coordinating Council (NGOCC), to call for a national consultative meeting later this year.

Engwase Mwale, executive director of NGOCC, says the meeting will map out new strategies on how to tackle the problem.

“It is not good news at all. That is why we want to meet with our members and work out ways of controlling these cases,” she said. She would not speculate on the reasons for the increased number of cases.

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, May 18 2011 (IPS)

Proponents of microfinance often portray it as the empowering extension of credit to vulnerable but diligently self-employed poor people – often women – who support each other to improve their livelihoods as well as repay their loans. The image is true, to some extent, but in many parts of Africa, microfinance institutions have somewhat sharper teeth.

Rebecca Mwanza inspects a hammer-mill. Credit: Lewis Mwanangombe/IPS

The Chawama Area Women’s Association, which groups 800 women in a cooperative enterprise, fits the profile. CAWA has run a maize-grinding operation in Chawama, a sprawling shanty town of about 250,000 people on the southern outskirts of Lusaka, for the past two years.

The association was given a hammer mill  – known locally as a chigayo – as part of a women’s empowerment project by the ministry of gender and development.

“Most of our members are either widows, HIV patients or housewives with severe financial challenges,” observes Rebecca Mwanza, vice-chairperson of the Association, “and this chigayo represents the only source of livelihood for them.”

The women are grouped into ten clubs that each use a share of profits from the chigayo to support other income-generating activities: some women make doormats, mops, or brooms; others sell fritters or popcorn, but the resulting income is then divided among the members of the club.

Banking services needed

CAWA’s new cash flow called for something more elaborate than an old biscuit tin or tying crumpled bills into a corner of one’s chitenge cloth; commercial banks were out of the question, as the association did not have enough money to meet a minimum balance of 150 dollars, and didn’t want to pay hefty monthly fees.

So the association opened a savings account with Pulse Financial Services Limited, a microfinance institution. The account has an opening balance of 200,000 Zambian kwacha (about $40), no charges or administration fees, and pays interest of six percent. Mwanza is happy with the services from Pulse. “So far it has been excellent.”

In addition to its savings accounts, Pulse, which was established in 2001, makes loans to small and medium-sized enterprises that can put up collateral and a sound business plan. The loans are short-term – usually between one and six months, and the longer the term, the higher the interest; for a three month period the rate is 75 percent and loans with repayment periods longer than four months attract interest as high as 100 percent.

After CAWA received its chigayo, it turned to Pulse for a loan. To begin, they borrowed the equivalent of a 100 dollars to buy diesel for the mill. This was repaid – with interest – in two months and the milling enterprise was able to stand on its own.

Evans Mwape, a community support officer in the ministry of Gender and Development, observed that the work of his ministry would be less effective if it were not complemented by the existence of MFIs like Pulse.

“What the government usually does is to apportion money to the various ministries for development projects. This money is meant for fixed assets, you understand, and not recurrent expenses,” Mwape told IPS.

“This means that when we give a chigayo to a women’s group, we do not give them operational capital. It is up to them to find that capital and in this case the women of Chawama had to find money for diesel and other running expenses on their own,” Mwape explained.

A good fit

Pulse Financial Services is not a charitable organisation, and not all of its clients repay their loans. “It is big trouble when a person fails to repay their loan,” says Mwanza. “There have been cases of many people defaulting on their loans in this township and Pulse have not hesitated to seize chattels. People have lost cars and household furniture here, I tell you!”

The Chawama Association was fortunate enough to receive its capital – in the form of the hammer mill – as a gift. Mwanza admits that if CAWA had borrowed the money to pay all or part of the cost of buying a mill, probably the business would not have been able to generate enough profit to repay the loan.

Pulse has proved the perfect banking solution for CAWA, however, and their milling operation has gone from strength to strength.

“Right now we are thinking of converting this chigayo from diesel power to electricity so that we may reduce our operational costs,” Mwanza said. CAWA is planning to borrow 400 dollars to buy an electric motor to power their mill instead of diesel.

CAWA member Queen Chitundu told IPS the group is also thinking of modifying the mill to churn out additional products, such as maize samp – used as meal by poor families – basic (commonly known as ‘roller meal’) and refined (commonly known as breakfast meal) maize flour and maize bran for farmers who use it as stock-feed.

“We believe all these plans will succeed and see us reach a new level if we remain close to Pulse as they have given us very wise advice on how to keep accounts in the past,” Chitundu said.

Excerpt:

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, May 18 2011 (IPS)

According to the World Bank, less than eight percent of Zambian adults have bank accounts. For the millions who make their living in the informal economy, this prevents them from earning interest on any savings they have or securing credit needed to expand small businesses beyond mere survival.

Relatively few Zambian entrepreneurs can afford to access microcredit. Credit: Lewis Mwanangombe/IPS

Commercial banks have little interest in lending – or even banking – small entrepreneurs’ money. Minimum opening balances range between $150 and $300 – far beyond the reach of most Zambians, even before considering hefty monthly charges.

“In the context of Zambia, where 58 percent of the population lives on less than one dollar a day,” says José de Luna Martinez, a senior economist at the Finance and Private Sector Development Office of the World Bank, “these minimum balances prevent most people from having access to basic banking services. Thus, with the exception of high income households, public servants and employees of large companies, most Zambians do not have access to products offered by banks.”

Commercial banks also have little appetite for the risks of loaning money to small and medium-sized enterprises, especially in light of the relatively small amounts owners of small businesses are seeking and the time and cost associated with pursuing defaulters in the Zambian courts.

Microcredit available – to some

These small enterprises instead turn to microfinance institutions (MFIs) which have less burdensome requirements.

“When we started our cooperative,” says Rebecca Mwanza, “we needed to open a bank account for our operations. But we soon discovered that it was not that easy to do, because banks were asking us for a minimum opening book balance of about 700,000 kwacha (around $150).”

Mwanza is the vice-chairperson of the Chawama Area Women’s Association, a collective with 800 members drawn from a crowded peri-urban area in southern Lusaka. “It was only when we turned to microfinance institutions that we found a cheaper way of doing this.”

“Cheaper” is a relative term – MFIs lend money at rates of interest beginning at 50 percent for short-term loans (1-3 months) and interest can climb as high as 75 or even 100 percent if the repayment period is longer than four months.

The Chawama Association borrowed money for fuel to launch a milling business which was instantly profitable, but not everyone is so fortunate.

Dickson Mweemba retired from government service seven years ago. For the past two years, he has been trying without success to get a loan to help him re-establish his poultry business. He left the civil service in a strong financial position, but the cost of sending his four children to university quickly ate up his savings and bled capital from his backyard poultry.

A costly divorce settlement claims most of his monthly pension, but Mweemba is sure an injection of funds would restore his poultry operation to profit.

“I know I can succeed in the chicken business,” he says, “but the banks will not lend to me because I do not have collateral.”

He approached two MFIs for a loan, but they declined to lend him anything more than a million Zambian kwacha – the equivalent of 75 dollars.

“But what can I do with one million kwacha, for goodness sake?” he snapped, adding that a bag of chicken feed costs nearly 40 dollars and a farmer needs 35 bags to raise 500 birds over a six-week period.

Mweemba needs more cash than the MFIs he approached are prepared to lend him. Commercial banks won’t look at his plans either as – living in a rented house on a fixed income – he cannot put up acceptable collateral.

At the other end of MFIs’ potential market, the half of the population living on less than a dollar a day, who will have neither a formal income nor furniture against which to secure a microloan, have little option but to turn to loan sharks, commonly known as ‘kaloba’.

Nathan De Assis, chairman of Pulse Financial Services Limited, sees the limited access to banking by a majority Zambians, as untapped potential for microfinance institutions like his to grow.

“With the increasing competition within the financial sector, evidenced by the increasing number of commercial banks and MFIs, Pulse will focus on its core business: the micro, small and medium-sized enterprises,” he told IPS.

There are now 25 MFIs registered in Zambia, but their total number of clients remains relatively small, at less than 100,000. To expand beyond this, they will have to find new models if credit is to become more widely available – and affordable – for a majority of Zambians.

Excerpt:

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, Mar 28 2011 (IPS)

Zambians head to the polls sometime before October and civil society groups are working hard to ensure their voices are heard. Groups which were excluded during the 2005 elections and the National Constitutional Conference that began in 2007 are mobilising to ensure they are not excluded.

Four years ago, Clotilda Mwale was among those who besieged the Zambian parliament, arguing the National Constitutional Conference would not represent of the interests of all Zambians. Along with church groups and some opposition parties, gender activists were frozen out of the process; with general elections coming up in 2011, they are determined not to let this happen again.

“I was convinced at the time that the MMD would stifle opposition and render meaningful debate in their National Constitutional Conference impossible,” Mwale said. The boycotting groups objected to the make-up of the 500-member NCC, which they felt was slanted towards the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy party.

“I was convinced at the time that the MMD would stifle opposition and render meaningful debate in their National Constitutional Conference impossible,” Mwale said. The boycotting groups objected to the make-up of the 500-member NCC, which they felt was slanted towards the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy party.

The Zambia women want

The NCC went ahead without the participation of many civil society groups. With general elections due before October, many of those who objected to the NCC are again united to push their agenda forward, this time under the “Zambia We Want” campaign.

The campaign is spearheaded by Women for Change (WfC), whose executive director, Emily Sikazwe, explains that it is meant to create a charter that will demand more of politicians in alleviating poverty and joblessness when they come into office after the coming national elections.

The campaign wants Zambian political parties to increase the numbers of women on who stand for election in this year’s municipal (local council), parliamentary and presidential elections.

WfC has trained and mobilised more than 450 area associations and individual group members to monitor the election process in four provinces while their partners will monitor in other areas of the country.

The campaign was launched in February 2010 but the charter itself has not yet been drawn up. Campaigners are still in the field canvassing support from voters and urging them to make demands on political parties and their candidates both before and after elections.

But with voting for local councillors, members of the national parliament and the presidency scheduled to take place later this year, and primaries already in gear, time is running out.

Repeating bad strategy?

Critics of the campaign say it is a rehearsal of the militant stance taken against the constitutional debates in the NCC framework in 2007.

“If non-governmental organisations did not boycott sittings of the National Constitutional Conference, the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) would not have taken advantage of the people of Zambia because those clauses which the MMD so selfishly wanted to include in the constitution would have been thrown out,” says Charles Milupi, leader of the opposition Alliance for Democracy and Development.

The MMD-dominated constitutional conference finally completed its work in August 2010 and pleasantly surprised civil society groups by including concessions to demands from women and other disadvantaged groups the new constitution.

Particularly pleasing to Mwale and her fellow gender activists, the new constitution has accepted that a Gender Equality Commission should be established by government. This commission will give true recognition to equality between men and women and ensure that women can – for the first time – inherit, own and administer land in Zambia.

The right of children born outside of marriage to care and inheritance from both parents has also been recognised. And a new concept has been introduced to Zambian labour law: paternity leave.

But among the contentious provisions proposed by the MMD and retained in the final document is the “50 plus one” clause, which requires the winner of presidential elections to secure more than 50 percent of all votes cast.

Sylvia Musonda, a freelance journalist, notes that the changes introduced in the new constitution will have an impact on Zambian life and law only if they are not watered down by parliament in the final draft when the ‘Constitution of Zambia Bill, 2010′ finally clears debates in parliament and receives presidential assent.

“Let them retain all that which has come out of the NCC. If they do, Zambia will have the very best of constitutions on the continent,” Musonda observed.

Excerpt:

By Lewis Mwanangombe
Lusaka, Mar 22 2011 (IPS)

Concina Haajila was only a year old in 1991 when Zambia turned from 27 years of autocracy and dictatorship to political pluralism and democratic governance. During the past 20 years she and millions of her peers have grown to adulthood and become disenchanted with the politics of their nation which have swung from an issue base to hero worship and personal purse enlargement.

Concina Haajila with her voter registration card. Credit: Lewis Mwanangombe/IPS

“That is why as the youth we need to encourage other youths to go and register as voters,” explained Marko Mulenga, the executive director of 2410 – a civil society organisation for young people that has turned its full attention to voter registration ahead of national elections due in Zambia towards the end of this year. The national elections coming up in Zambia will see men and women fight for seats in local and municipal councils; parliament and of course the hot seat of president.

“We need to have more people on the voters’ register because democracy derives its power from the number of people that have registered as voters,” Mulenga said. “That is why our target is to ensure that each and every person who is eligible to register as a voter does so and that they are not disenfranchised.”

Registration slow

Voter registration is a concern for government, opposition and civil society at present. When the Electoral Commission of Zambia launched its mobile registration program on Jun. 21, 2010 it was anticipated that it would capture at least 2.5 million new voters by the time it ended on Sep. 18.  But after this initial 90-day period, only a fraction this number of new voters had registered. The government extended registration until Nov. 30.

At the end of this extension, Cris Akufuna – the public relations manager at Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) – reported that 1,422,162 persons had registered as new voters. The government again extended the voter registration period, this time until Mar. 31, to give those who have delayed registration a chance to do so at their district, city or municipal council offices.

Mwimba Malama, is a Member of Parliament for the rural constituency of Mfuwe in Eastern Zambia and according to him the biggest reason for the slow pace of the voter registration exercise has been the slow issuance of national registration cards which are essential for individuals wishing to register as voters.

“In the first instance the voter registration exercise did not get adequate publicity in rural areas. Many potential voters in rural areas could not register because they did not even know about the voter registration exercise and they do not have national registration cards,” Malama said, adding that the government needs to mount a more vigorous and sustained voter registration campaign.

Raising awareness

With support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 2410 has implemented a voter registration awareness campaign, that is targeting youth like Haajila who are between 18 and 35 years to register as voters by appealing to them through Mobile Disco Shows, Short Messaging Service (SMS), fliers and civic education conducted on public commuter buses.

“The project’s strategy is anchored on three props namely; drawing large numbers of people to whom information about registering as a voter can be disseminated, taking advantage of captive audiences to relay civic education information to them, and providing targeted information to individual prospective voters,” Mulenga said.

“In addition, 2410 is involved in the ‘Zambia We Want” campaign. This campaign aims to make public leaders accountable to the general public. Furthermore, the campaign aims to publicise the wishes of the people of Zambia vis a vis all matters that are the responsibility of government,” Mulenga added.

The UNDP is supporting voter registration more broadly through a programme called “The Electoral Process in Zambia: Support to the Electoral Cycle 2009 – 2012”.

This project aims at providing support to the ECZ, the department of national registration and civil society organisations like 2410, in the hope of better organising and managing the electoral process in Zambia. Continuous registration of voters, improvement of the registry for ECZ, review of the legal framework and facilitation of participation of women in the electoral process and effective media monitoring of this electoral process are among the measures in progress.

UNDP has supplied Zambia with 1,000 voter registration kits that will rely on biometric technology, a first in the history of Zambia.  The kits, which include a digital camera, a computer, a printer and a lamination machine allow for on-site creation of a voter’s card. The kits have been distributed to every district of the country and have drastically cut down registration time by eliminating complicated paper forms, and reduced errors that in past delayed registration of voters.

Excerpt:

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, Nov 15 2010 (IPS)

Dams, sugarcane plantations and rapidly growing population threatened the health of the Kafue Flats, a richly diverse wetlands in southern Zambia. But growing recognition of more sustainable use of its water and fertile soil are securing the health of the ecosystem.

Tonga cattle are one of many species dependent on the Kafue Flats ecosystem. Credit: Lewis Mwanangombe/IPS

“When we were growing up we used to see lots of wild game grazing on these plains.  But over time the wild animals disappeared as more and more people came on the scene leaving only cattle grazing on the land,” Chief Mwanachingwala recalls.

The Flats were sparsely populated by humans, aside from Tonga herders who grazed their cattle on the lush grass that sprang up as waters receded in the dry season. But this changed dramatically with the establishment of several sugarcane estates beginning in 1968. Thousands flocked from all over the country in search of work on the estates and surrounding farms, many settling in and around the administrative town of Mazabuka.

Far more came to region than would find employment. The snapshot provided by the 2000 census revealed that the Zambia Sugar company employed 3,250 people permanently and 8,000 more on a seasonal basis. But 22,000 others lived in unofficial settlements on the company’s Nakambala Estate, 10,000 more were squatting in areas adjoining, many living crowded into rudimentary houses built of thatched grass.

Men and women alike eke out a living in the settlements – with gently ironic names like “Zambia” and “Show-Grounds” – as best they can. Casual labour on farms, petty crime, fishing.

But the river’s fish stocks have dwindled under dual pressures. First, the sugarcane estates draw vast amounts of water each day for irrigation. This water mostly returns to the water courses loaded with chemical fertilisers. This affluent encouraged the rapid growth of certain plants like water hyacinth, starving parts of the wetlands of oxygen and driving fish to less choked areas.

Equally damaging was the operation of the Itezhi-tezhi Dam, built immediately upstream of the wetlands in the 1970s. The dam was intended to hold water from the rainy season in reserve, and release it into the river during the dryest period in October and November to power the hydroelectric turbines in the Kafue Gorge Dam 250 kilometres away at the other end of the flats.

The Kafue Gorge generators produce a third of the country’s power, but the scheme badly disrupted the natural, dramatic changes in water levels with adverse effects on the many species whose life cycles were adapted to the annual flooding and drying out.

But a series of interventions prompted by the WWF and by locals themselves have begun restoring balance to the Kafue Flats ecosystem. New operating protocols for the hydro dams have been implemented, to better mimic the seasonal highs and lows. The sugarcane plantations have taken steps to reduce the nutrient-rich run-off. And local people established a 50,000 hectare conservation are that is generating income through tourism.

“The first phase of this partnership produced an Integrated Water Resources Management Strategy, computer models to simulate potential water management scenarios and to study their likely impacts. The second phase focused on implementation of the new water management system for Kafue Flats,” said Nalumino Nyambe, a former WWF staffer.

One of the WWF’s current officials in Lusaka, Dickson Mwape, says the federation worked to create a partnership between the government, estate owners, the Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation and locals.

Sugarcane estates now control much of their runoff with a biological solution: patches of reeds and papyrus are planted to serve as “wetland filters”, drawing up many of the nutrients before much cleaner water returns to the Kafue River.

“The plants grown as bio-filters can also be used to make a modest income – for example, basket-making from reeds,” Nyambe said.

Tonga Chief Mwanachingwala faced massive opposition when he proposed the establishment of a conservation area; many were suspicious that they would lose access to the valuable pasture they had relied on during the dry period from July to December.

He was able to overcome the objections and – with some of the land donated by the large sugar estates, and the bulk carved out of communal land, the Mwanachingwala Conservation Area was established. Starting with just 33 Burchell’s zebras and 130 impala by way of large fauna, the area now boasts of the rare Kafue lechwe, and another marsh antelope known as sitatunga.

The conservation area enjoyed the support from the Zambia Wildlife Authority, and was awarded a licence to operate on the understanding that eco-tourism receipts would be used to fund community projects like schools and clinics as well as giving out small cash payments to the villagers directly affected by the creation of the game sanctuary.

Nyambe argues that the protection of the Kafue Flats has succeeded because it involved all the stakeholders with a lasting presence and interest in the area.

Conservationists see the successes now being chalked up in the Kafue Flats as a model to protect other wetlands in Zambia; including the Barotse Flood Plain, and the Busanga-Lukanga swamps upstream of the Kafue Flats.

*This story is part of a series of features on biodiversity by IPS, CGIAR/Biodiversity International, IFEJ and UNEP/CBD, members of Communicators for Sustainable Development ( http://www.complusalliance.org).

Excerpt:

Small-scale traders on either side of the Mwami Border Post between Zambia and Malawi are key to meeting local demands that larger importers do not.

During acute food shortages in Malawi during the drought in the early 1990s, small-scale traders brought maize across the border from Zambia to Malawi; the same traders bought unused fertiliser in Malawi and brought it back to Zambia. At the time, Zambia had adequate rainfall, but serious problems with fertiliser imports left farmers short of the critical farm input.

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa recognises this kind of activity as key to ensuring supply and access to basic needs by border communities, able to quickly meet local demand that larger importers ignore.

A Simplified Trade Regime which waives all customs duties and taxes on shipments worth $500 has now been in operation for three months. The STR is intended to strengthen food security as well as improving rural incomes for smaller traders.

The kind and quantity of food available on one side of the border is often quite different from just 20 or 50 kilometers away.

In Chipata town, fish is scarce, meaning opportunities for fishing communities on Lake Malawi have opportunities to supply an important source of protein from across the border.

The STR dovetails neatly with trade programmes such as the 10 million euro Regional Food Security and Risk Management programme (REFORM) of the European Union, which aims to help small traders increase the supply of locally-produced food crossing borders.

“(REFORM) specifically aims at improving regional and national trade, social protection and disaster risk management,” Alexander Baum, head of the European Union Delegation in Malawi said.

“And one component of this programme is to enhance Cross Border Trade in agricultural commodities and is implemented by COMESA. Indeed, areas of surplus food production should have ready access to markets, especially those close to borders. A stable and uninterrupted demand for food from neighbours will result in farmers in surplus regions investing more to ensure long-term supply.”

Simplified tariffs will also benefit a different class of small-scale traders. In Lusaka’s “COMESA Market” – named for and situated behind the headquarters of the actual headquarters of the regional trade body – much of the merchandise is cheaper than equivalents in formal retail outlets like the multinational-chain store Shoprite. This is mainly because they are brought into the country in small amounts by small traders who evade official border posts.

Aggrippa Miti says he buys the goods he sells at the market from petty traders near the Mwami Border Post.

Miti explains that he calls someone on the Malawi side of the border to explain what goods he needs. “When I go to Mwami, I will find them – sometimes stored in a safe house in a small village. I pay and bring them to Chipata where I will load them on the bus leaves early in the morning.”

“There are many people who bring in things from Malawi. Some will come through the border post, but many do so using [clandestine] routes that are known here as ‘zalewa’,” Gloria Mwape an official at the border post told IPS.

Felix Mutati, the Zambian Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry, observes that the new rules are eliminating bribes and corrupt practices that were endemic and border posts like Mwami as well as encouraging traders who previously evaded the border post to bring their goods through it, enabling both countries to gain a better picture of real volumes of trade between them.

“The old rules led some traders to go round the check points at the border for fear of paying high customs duties and other taxes on even small amounts of goods,” Mutati said.

He is confident that the STR will also encourage increased trade of goods between the neighbours. In June, Zambia initiated the Simplified Tariff regime to cover Zimbabwe as well.

*The first in a two-part series looking at the Simplified Trade Regime between Malawi and its neighbours.

Josias Akataama spent March watching the moon wane above, and flood waters rise from below. Only with the sighting of the new moon, would the men, women and children of Kandiani know when they could leave the water-logged village for higher ground.

The royal barge leading the 2008 migration to winter settlements on the edge of the flood plain. Credit: Lewis Mwanangombe/IPS

Akataama is Lozi and his village lies in the Zambezi valley in western Zambia, in an area known as the Barotse Flood Plain. The villagers are proud of their proximity to Lealui, the royal village of the Litunga, the Lozi king. And it is for this reason that nobody has ever thought of abandoning their village, despite its annual submersion.

Floods are usually thought of in terms of distress and deprivation, but for the Lozi, floods are a source of happiness. Among the Lozi people a good rain season is one that covers the entire flood plain.

“It feels good to see the plain begin to flood in early January. The water will creep in from the river like a giant serpent and you know Kuomboka is also coming,” said Akataama.

Like most men in the villages of the plain Akataama, has volunteered to paddle the Litunga from the flooded village of Lealui to his other palace in the high ground town of Limulunga. But few will be admitted to the royal barge, the Nalikwanda, or its lesser boats.

But this year, by the beginning of March, the Zambezi’s waters were knee-high throughout the whole settlement. And with it had come snakes in search of shelter and warmth; colonies of dark brown fire-ants known locally as ‘sului’ and the ever-present threat of  crocodiles and hippos.

On Mar. 17, Litia Walubita, the acting Ngambela, or prime minister, of the Litunga, finally issued a statement informing all that this year’s Kuomboka ceremony would be held on April 17.

The Ngambela is the traditional mouthpiece of the Litunga at Kuomboka ceremony and in matters of tradition. “It is taboo for the Litunga to either make public statements or entangle himself in issues of politics,” Walubita said.

It is also forbidden among the Lozi people for any villager to leave the flooded valley for higher ground before their king does so. Only then can the villagers leave their flooded villages, load their possessions into dug-out canoes and row behind the king’s flotilla to higher ground on the edges of the flood plain.

They will return to the flood plain around July to begin the whole cycle once more.

“Without the annual floods there would have been no real agriculture here. Floods make it possible for us to grow rice without applying any chemical fertilisers,” says Silumesii Akabondo, a farmer from Nandopu village.

The annual exodus of the Lozi is thought by historians to date back to about 1500 when a remnant of the Luba-Lunda empire in present day Democratic Republic of Congo broke away and migrated southwards to what is today known as the Barotse Flood plain.

Akabondo retired from the Nchanga Copper Mine, on the Copperbelt, ten years ago, and began rice farming in a small way in his home village. He did well, and expanded his farm.

In 2009, Agricultural Development and Management Services (ADMS), a non-governmental organisation working on reducing poverty in rural areas, introduced Akabondo to growing wheat and for the first time he realised the full benefits of the flood plain.

“We plant the rice in November and harvest it in May when it ripens,” Akabondo explained. “Then immediately we again plant winter wheat which will feed on the moisture of the floods and ripen in August. This has given us chance to be paid twice from the same land.”

ADMS gives farmers not only wheat, but seeds for vegetables like tomatoes, spinach, and carrots, which they plant in April and May. The seed distribution is supported by funds from donors, including the European Union, the Japanese International Cooperation agency and USAID.

Akabondo insists the fertility of the valley is unparalleled. In addition to agriculture, the rivers in the plain boast numerous fish that come to the area to spawn and feed on the tender grass known as ‘mutaka’ and which remain in the Zambezi river after the flood waters are gone.

“Kuomboka is a traditional ceremony that is necessitated by economic survival,” says the chair of the 2010 Kuomboka ceremony organising committee, Oliver Saasa. Over time it has evolved into a ceremony that has attracted visitors from all parts of the globe.

Charles Mushitu, the secretary general of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Zambia, explains that though most Lozi people choose to live on the flood plain, there are also cases of families displaced by floods outside the normal flood area. The Red Cross and Zambia’s Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit are supporting several families in Senanga and Lukulu districts of the province who were displaced by floods earlier this year.

When he ordered his colleagues at the Water and Sanitation Association of Zambia to save all their urine in a plastic bottle in the office toilet, they thought he was mad. But German sanitation specialist Christopher Kellner wanted to demonstrate why he calls urine “liquid gold”.

Seconded to the Water and Sanitation Association of Zambia (WASAZA) by the Bremen Overseas Research and Development Association (BORDA) and the Centre for International Migration and Development of Germany, Kellner wasted no time setting up a urine-fertilised vegetable garden on the grounds of the WASAZA offices in Luskaka.

Workers’ pee is collected and used in the garden on Great East Road, across the road from the University of Zambia campus, and vegetables given to the urine donors to illustrate the valuable commodity that’s usually pissed away.

Kellner and his team at WASAZA are busy pushing on with developing and popularising a latrine that will separate human waste into two components – urine and solid matter, so they can be processed into two different forms of manure.

Kellner is piloting a system called a “fertiliser-producing toilet” which focuses on re-use of solid waste. Such a toilet, once integrated into gardening, will never fill up.

When a user sits on one of the new toilets, the urine will go one way to a storage tank fitted with a compressor and a valve, from where it can be collected for direct use as liquid fertiliser after dilution.

The solid waste will fall into a shallow pit where it will be covered with soil and compacted; it will dry it out and neutralise it before it is ready for use as fertiliser. Any smell is vented out through a pipe.

“The original idea is to enrich the vegetative growth in our immediate vicinity. But it can be sold at prevailing prices. These days dried sludge from sewerage works has a price of ZMK7,500 (around $1.60) per ton,” notes Kellner.

According to the Zambian government’s 2000 census, just under 15 percent of Zambia’s 1.8 million households had access to flush toilets or ventilated improved pit latrines. Even simple pit latrines are considered a luxury in rural communities and in the high-density urban settlements aruof Lusaka and the Copper Belt, where poverty is endemic.

Kellner says the toilet they are building now costs $1,800. “But the challenge is to get the same basic idea realised for a quarter of this or even less.”

Kellner reckons that on average, a person will produce 500 litres of urine and around 50 kg of faeces a year; so a a family of six can easily turn their waste into fertiliser for 1,000 square metres of garden.

“If we can popularise this type of pit latrine, then we can drastically cut the fertiliser costs of small farmers. We can encourage people to have fun and success from their gardens.”

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, Dec 21 2009 (IPS)

The Litunga of Barotseland, King of the Lozi, has no judicial or legislative authority. No supervisory control over government projects, and worst of all he cannot stand for elected office. Yet successive Zambian presidents have deferred to him.

Paramount Chief Mwata Kazembe of the Lunda people being presented to the people. Credit: Lewis Mwanangombe/IPS

The result was that two days later, on Nov 28, President Rupiah Banda flew to Barotseland (Western Province) for a meeting with the Litunga to resolve the issue.

The Litunga, and 200 or so other tribal chiefs in Zambia, are prevented by the republican constitution from standing for elected office, mostly because the government fears their influence in elections. But it defends its position by insisting that this law protects the chiefs’ integrity, and a sense of fairness among all subjects.

The chiefs and their supporters, who include the 1,229 who made submissions to the Constitution Review Commission that drafted the new Zambia constitution, now under debate at the National Constitutional Conference, reject the government position.

They demand that traditional rulers should be allowed to govern and engage in active politics by contesting council, parliamentary and presidential elections.

“Look at it this way, if our chiefs were engaged in the administration of their districts, even the civil servants would fear to plunder money meant for development,” opined David Kayama, of Mongu in Barotseland (Western Province).

Indeed many Zambians believe politicians have ‘an irrational fear of the chiefs’ and that is why they cannot allow them to exercise their constitutional rights as citizens.

“Government should let our chiefs rule. It seems politicians only want to see them in times of elections, but not when development is being considered,” said Diana Musonda in Lusaka. She claims to be of the Royal House of Chitimukulu, the Bemba King in Northern Province.

To placate these critics of government, in 2003 the late President Levy Mwanawasa revived the House of Chiefs, bequeathed to Zambia by British colonialists, but he clipped its functions and limited the chiefs only to be an advisory body to government ‘on traditional, customary and any other matters referred to it by the president’.

Before Mwanawasa became president his predecessor, former President Frederick Chiluba, had introduced a law specifically targeting Chief Inyambo Yeta, of the Lozi people in Sesheke district of Zambia, whose popularity and influence was so immense that he looked likely to take over as president of the country in any fairly contested election.

At the time Chief Inyambo was president of the United National Independence Party, and he enjoyed massive support from the Barotse Royal Establishment, the traditional government of Barotseland.

It was to counter Inyambo’s influence that in 1996 Chiluba piloted a law that forbade chiefs from contesting elections or openly supporting any political candidate.

“A person shall not, while remaining a chief, join or participate in partisan politics,” reads Article 129 of the Constitution of Zambia, as amended by Chiluba.

Earlier when Kenneth Kaunda was president, he altered the constitution out of fear of the influences of the four most powerful kingdoms in his country (the Lozi in Barotseland, the Ngoni in Eastern Province, the Bemba in Northern Province and the Lunda in Luapula Province). He gave himself authority and total control over land and natural resources to the exclusion of local chiefs.

Today corrupt officials in Lusaka are abusing this position, as they award huge tracts of land to so-called investors, who do not care for villagers and remorselessly uproot them. Where they set up mines and companies, few benefits go to the locals.

But in this regard the Litunga is not without blame. Between 1890 and 1909 the Litunga (King Lewanika) granted mining concessions to the British South Africa Company over land on which today’s Copperbelt lies according to the book Zambia’s Mining Industry, The first 50 Years, published by Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines in 1978, and also according to the book History of the Barotse (Lozi) Kingdom.

Few benefited, and today Barotseland is listed by the Zambian government as the poorest region in the country.

Indeed Zambian chiefs, like those elsewhere in Africa, have fallen on very hard times. The departure of colonial Britain from Africa has not brought relief. To the contrary it has brought them undeclared conflict with politicians, who fear giving away their power to these traditional leaders.

Areas of conflict have been many, and in Barotseland the latest tiff was sparked by an MMD wrangle over whether or not Banda, as acting party leader, should be installed as de facto leader without a convention.

MMD leaders in Barotseland had rejected the proposal of installing Banda, but their national leaders in Lusaka wanted him to go through unchallenged, and the national leaders quickly claimed that the rebels were drawing support from the Litunga.

The denial was swift and crisp. “At no time has His Majesty, the Litunga or the Acting Ngambela (who is the traditional mouthpiece of His Majesty) stated or caused to state a position that could have justified the disrespectful utterances that are said to come from the MMD caucus meeting,” declared Litia Walubita, acting Ngambela of Barotseland (Western Province).

This tiff was seen by many to be illustrative of the fragile relations that exist in Africa between kingdoms and central governments.

In Uganda, for example, the mistrust left by the first Uganda Republican President Milton Obote, over the powerful Baganda kingdom of the Kabaka or king continues to exist, even with Yoweri Museveni as president.

Similar friction has been seen in Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa.

Few in South Africa have forgotten how the Zulu kingdom, under the influence of then Bantustan Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, fiercely resisted the dominance of the African National Congress right up to the end of the struggle for majority rule.

That the African chiefs and kings hold heavy sway over their subjects is never in doubt. It is for this reason that in Zambia aspiring president Michael Sata, of the Patriotic Front, is courting traditional rulers of all tribes as he mobilises support for his bid.

He is not alone in this quest. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who has not hidden his ambition of becoming first president of a United Africa, has been lavishing food, drink and money on the continent’s chiefs and kings in the hope that they will support him.

But those in southern Africa, meeting as a kothla (house of chiefs) have rebuffed him, insisting through the acting chair, Chief Kutama, that they will not support Gaddafi’s scheme as it will reduce them to the role of puppets.

The chiefs’ claim to political freedom has won support from many in Zambia, and the result is that in the new draft constitution now under debate, Article 263 has been inserted allowing a chief to ‘seek and hold a public office, or participate in national political activities by standing for any elective public office’.

Also inserted is article 265 that allows chiefs ‘to initiate, discuss and make recommendations regarding the local community’s welfare’, meaning chiefs will now participate in development processes.

To the Litunga this is welcome news. He hopes he will win back some of the rights he previously enjoyed. Rights that included legislation of laws, adjudication of cases and most important of all the right to contest an election for high office, such as member of parliament or state president if he should choose to do so.

Excerpt:

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, Dec 17 2009 (IPS)

Prisca Musonda is an ardent supporter of Patriotic Front leader Michael Sata and his party. She has travelled with him to most parliamentary constituencies campaigning in elections.

The ECZ has failed to drag offenders of election violence to court. Credit: Lewis Mwanangombe/IPS

Musonda has dropped out of the PF cavalcade, as her friends were brutally beaten by ruling Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) cadres, and admitted to hospital suffering from multiple injuries.

This was during the November 19 by-election to replace the late local government minister and MMD member of parliament for Solwezi Central, Benny Tetamashimba.

Musonda, though also beaten, was lucky to escape with minor injuries. But colleagues who were with her – Faron Mbao and Elias Kamanga – were not so lucky. They were badly beaten by MMD cadres armed with stones and iron bars, and suffered multiple head and body injuries.

Two-and-a-half months earlier Zambians woke up to a rude spectacle on the front page of the Post newspaper, in which the deputy minister in the vice-president’s office, Gaston Sichilima, was pictured indulging in ‘fists of fury’ with an opposition United National Independence Party (UNIP) cadre, identified only as Kaziko.

In that incident in Serenje town, Central Province, as later in Kasama where there was also serious inter-party violence, election monitors from civil society organisations like the Anti-Voter Apathy Project (AVAP) fingered MMD campaigners as the main culprits, who when faced with possible failure in a by-election resorted to violence and thuggery.

“The MMD, as the party that is ruling us, must lead by example. I don’t know why they cannot follow the law, especially the Electoral Code of Conduct,” Bonny Tembo, who witnessed the fracas in Solwezi and is leader of elections watchdog AVAP, observed in Lusaka.

Under the Electoral Code of Conduct the Zambian government set out guidelines of what candidates can and cannot do. Under regulation seven it is an offence for political parties and their candidates to engage in ‘violence or use any language or engage in a course of conduct which leads to violence or intimidation during election campaigns or elections’.

The rules also prohibit candidates from carrying or displaying ‘arms or weapons, be they traditional or otherwise’. For offenders the law has set a penalty of one year’s imprisonment. Police too have their own guidelines in this law.

On paper, critics say, the Electoral Code of Conduct looks solid, but in practice it has been undermined by the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ), that has failed to drag all offenders to court.

For example, under Regulation 10 it is an offence to use government vehicles, money and other resources in political campaigns, but the MMD has broken this law without punitive action.

In addition Zambian police have been accused of favouring MMD cadres against campaigners from opposition parties. In the Solwezi by-election, PF and United Party for National Development (UPND) leaders were teargassed as though they were the offenders, when their side fought running battles with MMD campaigners after both parties wanted to address a public rally at the same time.

The MMD were not supposed to be there, but went anyway despite being advised against it by police. North-Western Province police commanding officer Fabian Katiba later admitted the mistake of police firing teargas, but said this had been necessary to prevent serious public disorder.

He agreed with the opposition that violence erupted between cadres of the MMD and the two parties of UPND and PF (which had entered a pact to contest elections as one entity), after MMD supporters abandoned their venue and went to where the PF and UPND were due to hold their meeting.

“We need protection from the police. They should not act like a wing of the ruling MMD,” opposition UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema complained to Katiba after the fracas.

But police are particularly vulnerable. It is not uncommon for commanding officers who insist on being fair to all parties to end up out of the job.

The latest victim of this bullying tactic is former Inspector-General of police, Ephraim Mateyo, who in the run-up to the presidential by-election last year tried to act fairly to all candidates.

In Lusaka two days before the by-election that picked Rupiah Banda (MMD) as president of Zambia, Mateyo decided to set aside areas to enable all political leaders in the election to have their rallies simultaneously.

The MMD were given Lusaka north, UPND Lusaka west and the PF Lusaka south-east. This arrangement did not please the MMD, as it allegedly split the attention of voters.

After Banda won the vote Mateyo was promptly out of a job, under the pretext that he was going abroad as a diplomat. He is still languishing in Lusaka.

ECZ spokesperson Chris Akufuna blames political parties for the upsurge of violence, insisting that though there is the Electoral Code of Conduct, MMD party leaders have chosen not to obey it.

The ECZ has been heavily criticised after their credibility was severely eroded in 2001, when they allegedly allowed the government of former president Frederick Chiluba to rig the presidential election in favour of late president Levy Mwanawasa.

PF president Michael Sata again made this claim against the ECZ at the end of the 2008 presidential by-election, which he lost.

“We need fairness from the leaders of political parties. Let them tell their members to abide by the Electoral Code of Conduct. That is our Bible. That is what guides all of us during the conducting of elections,” Akufuna declared.

In the wake of the Solwezi incidents, the Zambia Centre for Inter-Party Dialogue (ZCID), an umbrella grouping for major political parties, has turned its concerns into action by holding talks with the leaders of all major political parties.

“We need to hold elections that are free of violence in 2011, and that is why as the Zambia Centre for Inter-Party Dialogue we will continue discussions with party leaders,” declared Langton Sichone, ZCID spokesman.

“We don’t want to go the Kenya or Zimbabwe way,” remarked Alfred Mwape, a third-year political science student at the University of Zambia, in reference to the fatal violence that paralysed and tore apart the two nations two years ago.

Prisca Musonda agrees, pointing out that uncontrolled political violence in 2011, when Zambia will hold presidential, parliamentary and local government elections, can very easily spark civil war.

This would not only affect ordinary voters but even the occupant of State House – home of the Zambian president.

Excerpt:

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, Dec 15 2009 (IPS)

Harry Mubita was tired of his wretched condition in prison. He had been in Lusaka Central Prison for more than a year, and still there was no sign that his theft case would be heard.

Mubita, a tailor, accepted money from a woman who wanted him to make her a traditional dress known as the Chitenge Outfit – a long skirt and an intricately cut and sewn top, with a matching wrap-around and head-scarf. All made from a single length of material.

But he failed to deliver.

Mubita also did not refund the ZMK70,000 (about 14.40 dollars) payment, or return the six metres of cotton print. The aggrieved woman told the police, and two constables armed with AK-47 rifles arrested Mubita at his Kaunda Square Market shop. Mubita’s case is not unusual. What is unusual is that the day the magistrate recorded Mubita’s second plea, July 15, was the day on which former President Frederick Chiluba’s lawyers, Robert Simeza and John Sangwa, announced their intention to sue chief justice Ernest Sakala for being ‘over-aged’.

From the time the lawyers sued the chief justice in the High Court, it took only a week before the case was on the roll and allocated to judge Munalula Lisimba.

Among ordinary Zambians it can take more than a month from the time of arrest to when the accused appears before a judicial officer. Sometimes cases in the High Court, including appeals against the outcome of parliamentary election results, take as long as a year to be heard.

The speed with which the case against chief justice Sakala was handled amazed not only Mubita but many Zambians as well.

Judge Sakala and judge Peter Chitengi, had presided over an appeal by a person whose identity the lawyers did not want to reveal, but other sources indicated she was Regina Mwanza Chiluba, wife of ex-president Frederick Chiluba. At the time they were already over the retirement age of 65 for judges.

The lawyers submitted that by presiding over a case when they should already have retired, the judges compromised the fairness due to their client, since they had no authority to do so.

They argued that if President Rupiah Banda had wanted to retain them he should have submitted their appointments to parliament, which would have ratified or rejected them. The lawyers sued on the validity of the judges staying in office, claiming the chief justice had violated the law by remaining in office without the mandate of the people.

“This is what is often referred to as ‘shaking the tree’, because though the lawyers did take the judges (Sakala and Chitengi) to court, nothing really came of it, except the airing of legal arguments,” observed Greg Phiri, a third-year law student at the University of Zambia.

Indeed chief justice Sakala and judge Chitengi did go to court for being ‘over-aged’, and appeared before High Court judge Munalula Lisimba, but predictably the case was dismissed with costs against Simeza and Sangwa Associates.

This case incidentally highlighted the existence of two types of judicial process in Zambia: one for the privileged few and the other for the lower echelons of society

The hearing against chief justice Sakala took merely a month, while those of others will drag on for years.

Sakala admits there are too few courtrooms and even fewer magistrates.

“I have files full of complaints on delayed judgments and adjournments,” chief justice Sakala said earlier this year. He accused the local court justices, magistrates and judges of frustrating justice by ordering what he described as ‘strangely long adjournments of cases, regardless of whether the matters are urgent or not’.

Zambia’s prisons are consequently bursting at the seams with humanity. Penitentiaries built by imperial Britain to hold a few hundred are now overcrowded with thousands.

Lusaka Central Prison, for example, built by colonial Britain in the late 1950s for about 300 inmates, is crammed with about 1,800 prisoners – those convicted or awaiting trial.

“We are so overcrowded that when we sleep we cannot turn over freely. We all have to agree that we are turning to the right, and that is when we can do it simultaneously,” Mubita lamented.

Another former prisoner says in some cells prisoners have to sleep in turns: while others sleep another group will be standing over their inert bodies. After a while they exchange positions.

The ministry of home affairs estimates there are about 33,000 offenders in the hell-hole prisons country-wide, but the prison upkeep is something the government does not want to talk about.

Six years ago former commissioner of prisons, Jethro Mumbuwa, was so embarrassed by the nakedness of his prisoners that he pleaded for a donation of prison uniforms from the South African department of corrections. The Zambia Prison Service was given thousands of cast-away green prison uniforms for its inmates, who in some cases walked with their buttocks showing. In the 2009 budget finance and national planning minister, Situmbeko Musokotwane, gave the Public Order and Safety sector; under which the Zambia Prison Service falls, together with Zambia Police, a sum of ZMK610.7 billion.

In the 2010 budget unveiled in October, and still under debate in parliament, the minister has allocated to the sector a slightly increased sum of ZMK771.5 billion (or 4.6 percent of the total budget).

But it is not the budget or the wrangling of lawyers which are of interest to the poor languishing in prisons. It is not even the decision of the National Constitutional Conference to adopt a clause on the retirement age of the chief justice, and set it at 70.

“They can talk about the retirement age of the chief justice, but will that speed up the wheels of justice in this country?” Howard Banda of the Prison Fellowship of Zambia asks.

Like most Zambians with relatives in prison, this civil society organisation is concerned about delayed justice for many and hastened justice for a few.

“When are these people likely to receive their justice?” he asks, adding that some suspects have been held in prison for as long as four years without seeing the end of their case.

Admittedly, as with all aspects of Zambian life, the dispensing of justice has been compromised by HIV/AIDS, whose prevalence rate is at 16 percent, while life expectancy has dropped from 57 to 37.

Some court cases are often deferred repeatedly, either because presiding officers die of AIDS-related illnesses, or they are ill because of HIV, or their spouses and children are affected by the virus.

As for Mubita, he eventually walked out to freedom after the court sentenced him to six months, but since he had languished in prison for an entire year, it was ruled that he had served his sentence. And finally he was released.

Excerpt:

By Lewis Mwanangombe
NDOLA, Zambia, Nov 23 2009 (IPS)

When Obed Mumba first came to the Zambian copper mining town of Ndola in search of work, it was still known reverently as “Ku kalale” – the land of the white man. In the decades since, he has witnessed his Kabushi township outgrow the limited dreams of its planners.

Building a biodigester in Kabushi. Credit: Lewis Mwanangombe/IPS

Kariba comprised 130 housing blocks of six rooms each that were the envy of many native workers at the time. The changed fortunes of the town are felt keenly here, as the bright young men of today have quickly learned that it pays to follow revered sons of the city like Frederick Chiluba and Levy Mwanawasa (both former presidents of Zambia) to Lusaka, where fame and money are more readily found.

Hostels long outgrown

Established in the 1940s, Kariba section was built specially to accommodate people like Mumba who came to Ndola from Luapula as a single and eventually found work with Bwana Mkubwa (which means Big Boss).

This section comprised 130 swanky new housing blocks of six rooms that were the envy of many indigenous workers of the time.

But in the years since the rules preventing miners’ families from living with them were cast aside, each room became living quarters for a family of five or more. Shacks, known locally as “cabins”, were thrown up to house teenaged sons and daughters and extended family members.

The original sanitation arrangements, eight communal ablution blocks, each designed to serve 100 people, were soon overwhelmed. By the early 1980s the communal showers and toilets were completely abandoned.

“We had to dig shallow pit latrines near our houses and children who feared to fall into them began to defecate in the open. The whole place began to smell terrible with flies everywhere,” Mumba, who today runs a small grocery store, recalls.

Among those who had left Ndola to make his career was Bernard Phiri. He had risen to become chief executive officer of the Kafubu Water and Sewerage Company, responsible for the town’s water and sanitation, when in 2007 a non-governmental organisation from Germany established links with the Water and Sanitation Association of Zambia.

Appropriate technology

BORDA, the Bremen Overseas Research and Development Association, had been working on biogas projects in India since the late 1970s, and was interested in setting up a pilot project in Zambia.

Kabushi township was chosen for the pilot for a decentralised wastewater treatment system, intended as a waste and energy solution for a poor neighbourhood lacking sanitation. The system depends on bio-digesters to process human waste to give off methane gas.

A bio-digester is a reservoir – typically round – built out of burnt bricks and mortar or plain concrete with two vents fitted with valves. Through one vent, raw human waste flows in, which is hungrily fed on by bacteria, until out of the other flows an odorless, biodegraded slurry that can safely be used as manure in a vegetable garden.

Methane gas released by the bacteria collects at the top of the structure’s convex roof, and is piped away to feed stoves in the nearby homes.

Five hundred forty-seven toilets were constructed by Kafubu in Kabushi. “These are pour flush toilets with an integrated shower. The water supply is metered and the effluent from 156 households feeds the two biogas digesters that have already been constructed,” Phiri explains.

Waste not, want not

Each household is expected to pay for the piped water used in the toilet, kitchen and shower – billed at a rate of 59,200 Zambian kwacha – just under $13 – for 38 cubic metres of water.

Ba Shikulu-Mumba is one of the 30 grateful homeowners who has been connected to the gas network. He says it is much cheaper to cook on gas than on charcoal.

“A bag of charcoal costs about 30,000 kwacha and if your wife is careless you can end up with a bill of more than 150,000 ZMK (just over $30) a month,” he observed. A typical household in Kabushi gets by on roughly $100 each month.

As more digesters are built in the area, the plan is to connect all the houses as raw sewerage is expected to come in from more affluent neighbourhoods.

Sustainable development

The Kabushi project is the first integrated water treatment system in Zambia, and has already been copied by four of the country’s ten other water utilities.

Bwalya Nondo, spokesperson for the ministry of environment and natural resources points out that the project’s benefits extend beyond refurbished toilets and cheap fuel for residents. Harnessing renewable energy from human waste will also go a long way to protect Zambia’s fast-disappearing forests.

“At the moment charcoal burners destroy as much as 300,000 hectares of forest cover each year,” Nondo said.

The two biodigesters, and the gas pipes and support structures built in Kariba section of Kabushi has cost Kafubu Water and Sewerage Company around $830,000. The biodigesters have put Kabushi and the city of Ndola on the road to a sustainable new order for their city.

Excerpt:

For 70 minutes, the girls in the distinctive gold-and-green jersey of Brazil shut out the attacks by the visiting team. The bare feet of chubby-faced left back Njavwa Silungwe are lively in defence.

Jennifer Tembo is one of scores of vulnerable girls finding support in local football. Credit: Lewis Mwanangombe/IPS

The yellow-clad Chibolya Queens eventually lose the match. But their team’s mere existence is a small victory for its members. Chibolya Queens is a poor and loosely-knit outfit – a closer look reveals the girls’ jerseys don’t match – but the coach, players and support staff are not just playing for three points.

“When I say they have nothing I mean just that. Most of these teams don’t even have playing balls, and when they go for a match they have to walk there in addition to borrowing a competition ball,” said Rhoida Kafunda-Tembo sadly. She coordinates the Women’s Football League of the Football Association of Zambia.

Chibolya is a particularly tough neighbourhood, where even trained crime-busters from the Zambian police and the Drug Enforcement Commission fear to tread – despite it being only a stone’s throw from the heart of Lusaka.

“Here in Chibolya youths smoke ‘chamba’ (cannabis/dagga), and drink ‘kachasu’ (local illicit gin) all day long, sunrise to sunset, without being arrested. Prostitution is also rife, as it is a way of life for females of all ages,” observed a resident, Robert Mwiinga.

Silungwe and her team-mates find playing football gives them access to the information and support they need to avoid HIV/AIDS or unwanted pregnancy.

It also gives Silungwe confidence. “I want to be a nurse when I finish school,” she confides.

But there’s a long road ahead if she is to realise this ambition – Silungwe is 16, still in grade eight. “It has not been easy for me, because even the uncle I live with now does not want me. Each time he goes out drinking he will return and tell me to leave his house and get married, saying I am old enough,” she lamented.

Silungwe confesses that her relationship with her aunt is not strong enough for them to talk about intimate things such as HIV/AIDS, menstruation and pregnancy. That is why she turned to a football club for information.

Twice a week (Monday and Friday) the girls sit around in a corner of their football pitch, after training, to discuss HIV/AIDS, condoms, early marriages and unwanted pregnancies.

The Women’s Football League has decreed that all teams must have matrons to mentor the girls, and counsel them on the advantages of self-control and abstinence, but also on how to engage in sex without contracting HIV/AIDS, or conceiving unwanted babies.

“We teach them discipline – coming early to training and returning home quickly after practice.  We also teach them how to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS, and maintain high standards of personal hygiene,” said Mazyopa Nkhula, matron for another Chibolya team, the Shalom Queens. Topics include advice on substitutes for store-bought sanitary napkins.

Shalom Queens team captain Victoria Phiri admits that in Chibolya, and elsewhere in Zambia, it is not uncommon for terrified girls to dump their babies in pit latrines, or on communal rubbish dumps, and it is knowledge of how to avoid these situations that helps the team bond.

“As a team we not only learn how to play football, but to protect ourselves from early marriage, and bad things like unwanted babies and HIV/AIDS,” says the 17-year-old Phiri.

This is a large part of why local businessman Patrick Lubinda was aiming for when he formed the Chibolya Queens. He has shared some of the profits of his small retail outlet with the team, but doesn’t have the resources to do much more for the players. Lubinda also coaches, manages and mentors the team.

“We have about 20 girls in the team, most of whom are orphans who due to poverty no longer attend school,” he said.

Misheck Banda, coach and manager of the Shalom Queens and proprietor of a small private school in Lusaka also digs into his own pockets to keep the team going. “If only we were receiving a little help – not money but balls and stuff like that – we would be able to boost the morale of these girls a great deal.”

The economy’s down, the price of fertiliser’s up. And Zambian farmers are stealing sewage for their vegetable gardens.

Farmers dig canals like this one to lead waste water directly to their gardens. Credit: Lewis Mwanangombe/IPS

Yes, raw sewage is a cocktail of germs that can cause life-threatening illnesses. Sanitation officials in both Lusaka and the Copperbelt province are accusing peri-urban farmers of creating epidemics by nourishing their crops with foul water and partially-decomposed human poo.

But Irene Moonga, a sales assistant at one of the agricultural companies in Lusaka, sympathises with farmers trying to make a living as the price of fertiliser has risen over the past two years 58 dollars for a 50 kilogramme bag.

And as Zambia’s economy stumbles in the wake of fallen copper prices, hard-pressed consumers in urban centres are having to depend more and more on vegetables as their main relish.

A sackful of leaves from the rapeseed plant, treasured by Zambians as a table vegetable, costs as much as 30,000 Zambian kwacha ($6.50) wholesale at the fresh produce market where middlemen who buy from the “sewerage farms” bring the vegetables for onward sale.

Rosemary Mwamba, a market woman at Kaunda-Square Market in Lusaka, says they do not ask where the produce – rape, beans, green maize and sugarcane are among the vegetables being grown – is coming from before they decide to buy from a farmer.

“We are driven more by the quality of the vegetables. If the leaves are fresh and big then we buy. In any case, even if we were to ask questions I don’t think that would help us, because if a person knows they are selling something bad they will not tell,” she observed.

“It is because of this that under the Food and Drugs Act it is a big offence for one to use raw sewerage to water vegetables that are going to be sold to members of the public,” Bwalya added.

“They will puncture the sewer pipe as it traverses a vacant lot and use the raw sewerage to water and fertilise their vegetables,” he said.

The managing director of the Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company, George Ndongwe, failed to respond to inquiries about the extent of the problem in the capital, but an official at the utility, speaking on condition of anonymity, explained that the company is engaged in a “Tom-and-Jerry” game with the farmers.

“The moment they see our men at the sewerage ponds, these people bolt into the bush only to return after we are gone. To access the water, they first vandalise the settling ponds and the sewer pipes in order to tap into the raw effluent,” he said.

Margaret Zulu, spokesperson for Kafubu Water and Sewerage Company which manages potable water and sanitation on the Copperbelt, admits that vandalism of sewer pipes and ponds to hijack waste is a big headache for the company.

“Every once in a while we join hands with the councils to slash all the vegetable (gardens) using raw sewerage and clear the illegal farmers from the area, but they always come back. With cholera a persistent threat, we have to be on guard, especially now when we are going towards the rain season,” she explained.

Since 1991, Zambia has suffered regular cholera outbreaks, typically occurring at the start or in the middle of the rainy season that lasts from November to April.

Most of the recorded cholera cases – often in excess of 10,000 each year – occur in the unplanned settlements of Lusaka.

But it’s interesting to note that last year’s epidemic, for example, did not start in either Lusaka or the Copperbelt where many eat the waste-fertilised vegetables, but in fishing camps in Mpulungu district of Northern Province on the shores of Lake Tanganyika before spreading to high density locations in Lusaka and Kitwe.

Farmers seize on this to justify continuing to use raw sewage in their plots, though cholera is only one of a host of potential diseases. Farmer Samson Zulu, who has a vegetable patch at the foot of Lusaka’s Kaunda-Square settling ponds, is unrepentant.

“What do they want us to do? We have families to look after and this government, even the one that was there before it, have failed to give anybody a job,” Zulu declared bitterly.

By Lewis Mwanangombe
NDAPULA, Zambia, Sep 6 2009 (IPS)

Nine kilometres each way, rain or shine: That’s how far Suzanne Chisulo has to travel to school each day.

Chisulo is one of 120 girls who faced problems getting to the Ndapula Community School. Many of the girls were missing lessons at least twice a week.

Distance was the factor that prompted Muliswa and a handful of parents, among them village headmen Kachepa, Chikwampu, Chitumbo and Kalimakwenda, to start the school in 2003. The nearest school then was 30 kilometres away.

It is estimated that only 20 percent of children who enter primary school in rural Zambia eventually complete Grade 12. The main reason for this is the long distances they must travel to and from school. Girls like Chisulo face the additional risk of being raped en route to class.

“Some children walk up to 20 kilometres each day to school and back; in all they spend more than five hours on the road. During this time they are open to verbal abuse, insults and even physical attack if they are girls,” Zambia’s deputy minister of education, Clement Sinyinda, told IPS.

The situation is not peculiar to Zambia, but to rural Africa as a whole. The impact, especially on girls, of dropping out of school early is severe.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reports that around the world, girls who go far with their formal education not only earn higher incomes, they are more likely to take their children for immunisation, provide better nutrition and experience lower rates of maternal and child mortality when compared to peers who fail to complete primary school.

Zambian academic Elizabeth Mumba notes that girls who complete higher education are empowered “to fully participate in and benefit from the economic and social development of the nation” in addition to being able to protect themselves better from HIV/AIDS.

Kazuko Otsu, a visiting researcher from Japan’s Hokkaido University of Education, observed that in Zambia “long distances between homes and schools, and the shortage of proper sanitation for girls could be major factors that affect the supply side. In addition sexual harassment by older boys and male teachers seems to be serious in some schools.”

It is to help girls avoid this fate that Chicago-based World Bicycle Relief has come to Africa with an initiative that will greatly help more girls complete at least Grade 9 of formal education.

Ndapula Community School recently became the first school on the continent to benefit from this programme when a truckload of 100 bicycles arrived for distribution – mostly to girls from remote villages. Suzanne Chisulo was among the first recipients.

“Before I got a bicycle, I used to wake up at 4 a.m. in order for me and my friends arrive at school before 7 a.m. when classes start. This journey was especially bad because sometimes you could find bad boys who used to chase us and force those whom they caught do bad things,” Chisulo explained with a lot of embarrassment.

Rita Daka, an orphan who lives with her grandmother at Kapilipili village admitted that before she got a bicycle she was usually so exhausted after walking to and from school that she would feel like not going back to school the following day.

“With the new bicycle I am now able to attend school regularly,” she said. The project is off to an auspicious start.

Excerpt:

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, Apr 5 1998 (IPS)

Zambia will have its annual meeting with the ‘Paris Club’ next month with a new finance minister heading its delegation – and a poor track record on good governance.

According to political observers, the combination could spell disaster at the meeting where Zambia will be seeking the disbursement of needed funds to keep its economy and economic reform programme on a smooth path.

Last month, President Frederick Chiluba sacked his long-serving Finance Minister Ronald Penza, considered by many Zambians to be the darling of the donor community. He has been replaced by Edith Nawakwi, who held the portfolios of Energy and Water Development and of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries.

Although Nawakwi has been apart of past delegations to the consultative meeting with the donors, some Zambians are sceptical about her ability to steer the economy. Nawakwi’s main task in Paris will be to convince the donors to release the bulk of the funds promised for balance of payment support and for general financing, observers said.

At the July 1997 meeting with the ‘Club’, Zambia’s external partners had promised at least 150 million U.S. Dollars in balance of payments support, plus an additional 285 million U.S. Dollars for general financing. But by December 1997, only the World Bank had come through with 42 million U.S. Dollars for balance of payment support. Most of the donors continued to withhold funds, citing Zambia’s poor performance on governance.

The donor community was particularly irked by the Chiluba government’s handling of the October coup attempt by junior army officers. The government detained more than 90 persons, including former Zambian leader Kenneth Kaunda, delayed in bringing charges against those detained, and imposed a state of emergency which was lifted recently.

Zambia’s donors not only kept their cheque-books closed, but also refused to meet the government delegation last December as scheduled. If Finance Minister Nawakwi fails to convince the Paris Club in May to release funds to this Southern African nation, one of the major programmes that will be in jeopardy is the Public Service Reform Programme (PSRP).

Phase II of the PSRP was scheduled for this May. Last December, some 6000 daily paid employees – messengers, cleaners and drivers – were laid off with a promise that their redundancy packages would be promptly paid. Although some of the laid off workers received their pay in February, others are still struggling to claim their monies.

PSRP, which began in November 1993, calls for the retrenchment of 80,000 public workers. It also aims to build the capacity of those remaining in government, and gives support to the ‘Future Search Project’, which provides entrepreneurship skills for those retrenched from the public service.

Labour and Social Security Minister, Newstead Zimba, says however, that with or without donor funding, the process of thinning the civil service will continue smoothly as a sum of 116 billion Zambian Kwachas (about 70 million U.S. Dollars) has been set aside to meet the cost of laying off civil servants after May.

Finance Minister Nawakwi agrees, and says she expects no surprises at the May consultative meeting. The continuation of the economic reform programme, bridging of the financing gap in the 1998 Zambian budget, poverty reduction and the stimulation of growth will be the main topics on the table, she adds.

Zambia’s debt, which amounts to about 10 percent of Gross Domestic Product, will also come up for discussion once again in Paris. But Nawakwi appears not to be worried by the task before her.

“I know the debt burden is high, but I am sure we can make it manageable. In this regard, the donor support should be seen as a temporary helping hand and the burden of turning around our economy still rests squarely on our shoulders,” Minister Nawakwi says.

Excerpt:

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, Mar 21 1998 (IPS)

The El Nino phenomenon that has been sweeping the world has left farmers in parts of Zambia mourning for their waterlogged fields while those elsewhere in the country are in tears because their plots have been parched by drought.

The devastation caused by El Nino, a warm ocean current that disrupts weather patterns, prompted the national assembly to adjourn for 10 days on Mar. 13 to allow parliamentarians to travel to their constituencies and assess the situation there.

The adjournmentfllowed a trip by speaker Christon Tembo, who is also the counry’s vice-president, to the flood-hit North- western, Copperbelt, Luapula and Northern provinces and the drought-stricken Western, Central, Eastern and Southern provinces.

Tembo said parliament would adjourn until Mar. 24 so that parliamentarians can report accurately on what is happening in their areas. According to Agriculture, Food and Fisheries Minister Edith Nawakwi, the government will also carry out its own assessment.

Nawakwi said that in addition to registering washed out roads and bridges, collapsed houses and the devastation to farmland, the government also wants to find out what support rural communities need as regards seeds and fertilisers for the planting season due at the end of this year.

Indications are that this is the first time Zambia has suffered so much from inclement weather. Thirty-four districts with an estimated population of 886,111 now need help.

Earlier estimates by the government’s Localised Needs Assessment (LNA) programme, which falls under the Vice-President’s office, had identified 29 districts as needing relief food amounting to 28,000 tonnes for a target population of about 788,611 up to the end of this month.

Building materialsare also required: Tembo discovered during his tour that close to 1,500 huts had been reduced to rubble in villages and slums in and around the North-Western Province capital of Solwezi.

The province’s permanent secretary, Ronald Mukuma, reported that many bridges had been washed away by flood waters. The government, he added, has released 15 million kwacha (just under 9,000 U.S. dollars) for temporary repairs to three bridges here, while quilts, clothes and 41 tents have been provided for people whose houses had collapsed.

Damage to bridges has left more than 45,000 villagers marooned and the government was reported to be planning to airlift some 18 tonnes of food to them.

Incessant rains have continued to wash away bridges in the Luapula province, which has most of Zambia’s swamps, natural lakes and lagoons. According to Tembo, more than 2,000 houses have collapsed in the province, while rice, cassava and maize fields have been submerged.

Provincial Permanent Secretary Maybin Mubanga said the situation was desperate among villagers and that in some areas such as the Chienge and Mununga districts, flood waters now flow freely where roads once existed.

In the copper mining town of Kitwe, located in the relatively industrialised Copperbelt region, more than 72 mud-walled houses crumbled like soggy biscuits while household goods were swept away in shanties located a mere 300 metres from the Kafue river, which burst its banks over the weekend.

One victim, Chanda Mulenga, said the flood caught them unawares as it occurred at night as a result of a heavy downpour. The following morning they were lucky to escape with their lives while the floodwaters swept away all his possessions, including clothes and a cherished transistor radio, he added.

The deputy resident representative of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Chief Omoete Oyaide, confirmed that Zambia was facing an extraordinary situation as El Nino, had cut the country into two distinct flood and drought areas.

Chief Oyaide said the UN was very concerned about the situation and its impact on rural Zambians, which was why it was now studying the situation with a view to offering help.

The World Food Programme (WFP), for its part, has donated 489 metric tonnes of food — mainly maize flour, high-energy protein supplements and vegetable oil — and tools worth 300,000 U.S. dollars to Zambia.

The tools, which include shovels, spades, picks, rakes, wheelbarrows and buckets, are to be used in rebuilding houses, digging pit latrines and repairing drainage systems destroyed by floods, according to WFP country director, Bai Bojang. More than 50,000 persons are expected to benefit from that package.

World Vision Zambia, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has pledged to provide food for another 17,500 people.

However, the Zambia Shanty Compounds and Sustainable Development Organisation, another NGO, estimates that 600,000 persons in the Luangwa valley in the far north are threatened with starvation.

While some areas have too much water, others have too little, including the Southern province, whose permanent secretary, Sylvester Mpishi, has called on the government to build dams for the drought stricken region.

So has Nanty Simango, a member of the district council of Kazungula, on the border with Botswana. He said only pragmatic water conservation measures could save his district from destruction since five areas there are affected by a terrible drought that has reduced them to arid wastes.

Excerpt:

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, Mar 19 1998 (IPS)

The El Nino phenomenon that has been sweeping the world has left farmers in parts of Zambia mourning for their waterlogged fields while those elsewhere in the country are in tears because their plots have been parched by drought.

The devastation caused by El Nino, a warm ocean current that disrupts weather patterns, prompted the national assembly to adjourn for 10 days on Mar. 13 to allow parliamentarians to travel to their constituencies and assess the situation there.

The adjournment followed a trip by speaker Christon Tembo, who is also the country’s vice-president, to the flood-hit North- western, Copperbelt, Luapula and Northern provinces and the drought-stricken Western, Central, Eastern and Southern provinces.

Tembo said parliament would adjourn until Mar. 24 so that parliamentarians can report accurately on what is happening in their areas. According to Agriculture, Food and Fisheries Minister Edith Nawakwi, the government will also carry out its own assessment.

Nawakwi said that in addition to registering washed out roads and bridges, collapsed houses and the devastation to farmland, the government also wants to find out what support rural communities need as regards seeds and fertilisers for the planting season due at the end of this year.

Indications are that this is the first time Zambia has suffered so much from inclement weather. Thirty-four districts with an estimated population of 886,111 now need help.

Earlier estimates by the government’s Localised Needs Assessment (LNA) programme, which falls under the Vice-President’s office, had identified 29 districts as needing relief food amounting to 28,000 tonnes for a target population of about 788,611 up to the end of this month.

Building materials are also required: Tembo discovered during his tour that close to 1,500 huts had been reduced to rubble in villages and slums in and around the North-Western Province capital of Solwezi.

The province’s permanent secretary, Ronald Mukuma, reported that many bridges had been washed away by flood waters. The government, he added, has released 15 million kwacha (just under 9,000 U.S. dollars) for temporary repairs to three bridges here, while quilts, clothes and 41 tents have been provided for people whose houses had collapsed.

Damage to bridges has left more than 45,000 villagers marooned and the government was reported to be planning to airlift some 18 tonnes of food to them.

Incessant rains have continued to wash away bridges in the Luapula province, which has most of Zambia’s swamps, natural lakes and lagoons. According to Tembo, more than 2,000 houses have collapsed in the province, while rice, cassava and maize fields have been submerged.

Provincial Permanent Secretary Maybin Mubanga said the situation was desperate among villagers and that in some areas such as the Chienge and Mununga districts, flood waters now flow freely where roads once existed.

In the copper mining town of Kitwe, located in the relatively industrialised Copperbelt region, more than 72 mud-walled houses crumbled like soggy biscuits while household goods were swept away in shanties located a mere 300 metres from the Kafue river, which burst its banks over the weekend.

One victim, Chanda Mulenga, said the flood caught them unawares as it occurred at night as a result of a heavy downpour. The following morning they were lucky to escape with their lives while the floodwaters swept away all his possessions, including clothes and a cherished transistor radio, he added.

The deputy resident representative of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Chief Omoete Oyaide, confirmed that Zambia was facing an extraordinary situation as El Nino, had cut the country into two distinct flood and drought areas.

Chief Oyaide said the UN was very concerned about the situation and its impact on rural Zambians, which was why it was now studying the situation with a view to offering help.

The World Food Programme (WFP), for its part, has donated 489 metric tonnes of food — mainly maize flour, high-energy protein supplements and vegetable oil — and tools worth 300,000 U.S. dollars to Zambia.

The tools, which include shovels, spades, picks, rakes, wheelbarrows and buckets, are to be used in rebuilding houses, digging pit latrines and repairing drainage systems destroyed by floods, according to WFP country director, Bai Bojang. More than 50,000 persons are expected to benefit from that package.

World Vision Zambia, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has pledged to provide food for another 17,500 people.

However, the Zambia Shanty Compounds and Sustainable Development Organisation, another NGO, estimates that 600,000 persons in the Luangwa valley in the far north are threatened with starvation.

While some areas have too much water, others have too little, including the Southern province, whose permanent secretary, Sylvester Mpishi, has called on the government to build dams for the drought stricken region.

So has Nanty Simango, a member of the district council of Kazungula, on the border with Botswana. He said only pragmatic water conservation measures could save his district from destruction since five areas there are affected by a terrible drought that has reduced them to arid wastes.

Excerpt:

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, Feb 25 1998 (IPS)

Four months after junior Zambian army officers staged an abortive coup d’etat against the rule of President Frederick Chiluba, the soldiers and civilian politicians linked to the putsch Wednesday appeared in court.

The formidable group of 74, who appeared before magistrate Getrude Chawatama, included a large force of junior army officers, their superiors, and the leader of the opposition Zambia Democratic Congress (ZDC), Dean Mung’omba. Seventy-six persons are being tried for the attempted coup, but two were absent from court Wednesday due to ill health.

The alleged coup plotters, mostly in their early 30’s, are accused of planning to overthrow the Zambian government by unlawful means.

Opposition ZDC leader Mung’omba, Captain Jackson Chiti, Major Billex Mutale, Major Bellington Nkoma and Baldwin Manase were charged with the overt act of conspiring to overthrow the Zambian government between July 1, 1995 and October 28, 1997.

Captain Chiti also was specifically charged with the offence of mobilising 69 soldiers from different bases of the Zambian Army and commandeering 11 armoured vehicles for the purpose of forming an illegal army to overthrow the Zambian government.

Eighteen of those who appeared in court Wednesday also were charged with the offence of entering the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation by the use of force so as to allow Captain Steven Lungu to announce developments of the coup, staged last October.

Captain Lungu, who broadcasted the coup attempt to Zambians on October 28, 1997 under the nom-de-guerre of Captain Solo, was absent from court due to poor health.

He is detained in Kamfinsa Prison outside the Zambian city of Kitwe on the Copperbelt, and since his detention, he has been in and out of hospital suffering from malaria. Lungu also is reported to be a long standing tuberculosis patient.

Security was tight at the court where razor wire fencing has been installed, together with stout metal grills on windows and doors.

The Supreme Court has also been modernised with new air conditioning units and broadcast equipment — microphones and speakers — for the benefit of so many accused persons. Chiluba’s government also has purchased new blue, sealed trucks to transport the coup plotters to and from prison.

Magistrate Chawatama Wednesday adjourned the case to Mar. 11 for mention, before she can commit the accused to the High Court for trial. All the accused persons were remanded into custody.

Under Zambian law, even serious cases like treason, murder and aggravated robbery have to start from a magistrate’s court as a formality, before they are transferred to the High Court for trial.

The case promises to be a very difficult one for government prosecutors. Some of the accused soldiers have argued that they acted under rigid military orders which could not be defied.

Lined up for the defence also is a team of lawyers recognised as some of Zambia’s best legal minds. These include respected counsel Edward Shamwana, immediate past president of the Law Association of Zambia, Sakwiba Sikota, the former University of Zambia Dean of the School of Law, Patrick Mvunga, and female lawyers Nellie Mutti and Mwangala Zaloumis.

The two women are part of the exclusive team of lawyers defending former President Kenneth Kaunda on his particular charge of ‘misprision of treason’, or in a layman’s language, ‘concealment of knowledge of the possible commission of treason.’

Besides the soldiers, whose ranks range from private to major, there is also a sprinkling of civilian politicians from the United National Independence Party, the Zambia Democratic Congress and from the ruling Movement for Multi-Party Democracy.

The MMD’s women’s national chairperson, Mirriam Mbololwa Wina, is detained in the midlands town of Kabwe in connection with the October coup attempt. She has not been charged or brought to court.

Government prosecutors told Magistrate Chawatama that they wanted all the 76 accused persons to be tried as a group. But this raised immediate objections from the defence lawyers with Shamwana arguing that this was impossible, and even if it were, the accused would not receive a fair trial.

After the short-lived coup d’etat was quickly crushed by loyalist troops, the government imposed a state of emergency, which was renewed last month to enable police to investigate the event fully.

Opposition political parties and non-governmental organisations Wednesday called on the government to lift the emergency regulations saying they served no further purpose, since all known suspects had now appeared in court.

Excerpt:

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, Feb 24 1998 (IPS)

Sara, a fictional character, is the most unlikely of heroines. All she does is to try and convince her uncle that she should stay in school.

But in a country like Zambia, where the education of girls still lags far behind that of boys because of age-old traditions and culture, Sara, to many people’s surprise, has become a big hit.

Sara’s adventures are no different from those of many young Zambian girls. “We can only afford to keep one child in school and of course that will be your brother,” Sara’s uncle tells her.

The Sara Communications Initiative developed by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for Eastern and Southern Africa with the help of artists from Malawi, Zimbabwe and Kenya, has hit home in Zambia, because Sara has problems which are well known in both urban and rural areas.

UNICEF Information and Communications Officer, Victor Chinyama, says when Sara was introduced to test audiences recently, people identified with her plight to exercise her right to education.

According to Michael Kelly of the School of Education, University of Zambia, less than two-thirds of girls in the rural areas attend primary school, while fewer than 17 percent are in junior secondary classes and only four percent in senior secondary schools.

Nationally, for every 100 girls who enter Grade One in Zambia, only seven may finally sit for the Grade 12 School Certificate examination and out of 1000 girls who enrol for Grade One, only two might proceed to university.

Kelly contrasts this scenario with statistics for boys — out of 100 boys who begin Grade One, 15 will sit for their School Certificate exams, and out of 1000 who begin Grade One, 10 will eventually enter university.

In co-educational secondary schools, 37.5 percent of total admissions are girls, while boys comprise more than 60 percent of all admissions.

The majority of those training to be teachers in this Southern African nation also are men. Fifty-one percent of those in primary teacher training colleges are men, while in teacher training colleges for secondary schools, 65 percent of the trainees are men.

And, at the University of Zambia and the Copperbelt University, 80 percent of the students are males.

“The image of the girl child in Zambia is that of a passive, submissive person who remains quietly in the background, the first to serve and the last to speak,” says Kelly.

“This image is strongly reflected in textbooks that are still in use in schools. What is amiss is not that the girl child does not count, but that she counts less than a boy child,” Kelly adds.

In this male-dominated society, girls and women have to fight for their rights on all fronts. Even after obtaining a school certificate, college diploma or university degree, Zambian women enter a labour force that considers her earnings as only a supplement to her husband’s.

But inspite of the negative attitudes towards the education of girls, Sara has been welcomed like a prodigal daughter.

“Her story has a very important message and it is based on real life situations,” says Gideon Phiri who saw the video about Sara.

“How many uncles can we count even here in Chawama (a high density area in Lusaka) who have squandered resources of their dead brothers without regard for the welfare of the children? Except in Sara’s case, the uncle squandered the money while his brother was away to work in town.”

Miriam Chanda, who also watched the show, believes it was “an act of God” that Sara was given by her teacher a book, which enabled her to build a energy-saving stove, which, in the end, wins her support from the uncle who initially had wanted her to stop formal education.

The twist in the tale is the return of Sara’s father and the public unmasking of the uncle who misused money meant for Sara’s education, and who almost won a council seat out of Sara’s stove invention.

Chinyama of UNICEF says Sara is a big multi-media project, which includes the animated video film, produced in seven episodes; a 13-part radio series for broadcast in English; comic books; supplementary school readers; posters; short stories; drama; music and puppetry.

Later, there will be games, textiles and ceramics, and Chinyama says Sara can easily become a cult figure. But it is hoped that as Sara moves around rural Zambia, her story will change attitudes and improve the educational levels of girls.

Excerpt:

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, Jan 15 1998 (IPS)

The Zambian government is bracing itself for a wave of industrial unrest as wildcat strikes break out on the copper and cobalt mines, and workers in the public sector threaten labour action over a new wage-freeze policy.

Workers in this Southern African nation are dismayed by their stagnant wages as the cost of living continues to rise, and officials within the country’s labour union movement are rallying workers to take action.

On the mines, the contentious issue of bonuses has triggered wildcat strikes at three mines in the mineral-rich Copperbelt Province.

Paul Kafumbe, President of the Mineworkers Union of Zambia (MUZ), said that widespread industrial unrest is still expected at mines owned by the state enterprise, Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM), because the mine bosses have failed to listen to the workers’ representatives.

The miners are angry over management’s failure to pay a production bonus which was introduced by ZCCM in 1997. The union says that the bonus was introduced in a “haphazard” fashion, leading to the current problems.

“From the beginning, the union was reluctant to get involved in this scheme, because it could get no agreement on the manner in which bonuses were to be handled,” Kafumbe said.

ZCCM wanted the scheme to cover only workers directly involved in production at underground and open pit workings, while the union wanted it spread to all workers, because “…mining is team work”, Kafumbe said. “Without the sweepers and engineers who repair equipment, there can be no production to talk about,” the union leader added.

Last November, miners in production met their targets, but the ZCCM suddenly got cold feet and began to look for excuses to not pay the bonuses.

Sam Equamo, ZCCM Manager Corporate Affairs, admits that the miners met their production targets, but is quick to point out that for the bonus to be paid out, production costs must be kept low.

“In order to earn a production bonus, the requirement is that production must be above target, while the unit cost must be on or below target. This requirement applies to all ZCCM’s operating units,” Equamo said.

Irate miners at two mines downed their tools last week, and day shift miners at ZCCM’s Nkana Mine stopped work this week, but returned to their stations after being addressed by union leaders and mine managers.

“They (management) are getting caught by the system which they created and which was discriminatory,” Kafumbe said, adding that the union supported a bonus which would be for every worker so long as targets were met and costs kept down.

MUZ will enter into negotiations with private owners of copper and cobalt mines in the Copperbelt for the bonus system to take effect in 1998 for workers at these mines.

It also plans to review the renumeration system for all workers on the mines. While the union supports bonuses for all workers, it believes the regular pay package should be based on the workers’ direct contribution to production.

“We want to review the remuneration package so that the standardised method of pay can be phased out and each employee can be paid according to his share in the production effort,” Kafumbe said.

The union’s executive believes that those working underground should be paid more than secretaries and personnel managers who work in offices.

Meanwhile, besides the miners, public workers too have threatened to stop work to protest against a two-year wage freeze imposed by the Zambian government in early January.

Twenty-two affiliates of the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) met recently on the Copperbelt and have threatened a major industrial action if the wage freeze is not withdrawn immediately.

Alec Chirwa, a former civil servant who is now the ZCTU secretary-general, said that the union will stand firm on this issue, since the government did not discuss the freeze with the union first.

“The ZCTU is aware that Zambia, as a member of the International Labour Organisation, has ratified conventions number 98 on collective bargaining, 151 on labour relations and 154 on public service bargaining.

“In this vain, government is contradicting the conventions, because there was no consultation and concensus on the imposition of the wage freeze policy,” Chirwa argued.

The controversial policy is among measures being taken by the Zambian government to downsize the public sector as part of economic reforms. So far, the government has targetted 8000 ‘Classifed Daily-paid Employees’, among whom are a large number of ‘ghost workers’.

Some 50,000 civil servants in the areas of journalism, agriculture, teaching, social welfare and mainstream administration will be next in line for retrenchment.

According to the Finance Minister Ronald Penza, after these workers are retrenched, the government will be able to pay salaries in excess of the current earnings of 150,000 Kwachas (100 U.S. Dollars) or less monthly, to the remaining civil servants.

Chirwa said that the public service unions are willing to promote dialogue on all matters related to the public service reforms, but he added that this should not encourage government to ignore established procedures.

Excerpt:

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, Jan 14 1998 (IPS)

Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have agreed to eliminate smuggling across their 2000- km common border and to promote legitimate trade and joint-venture business.

The DRC’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Bizima Karaha, told a meeting here attended by officials from both countries this week that apart from combatting smuggling, which has overshadowed genuine trade for decades, the DRC and Zambia need to revise past trade agreements to meet current business needs.

Stability returned to the DRC, formerly Zaire, following the overthrow last May of the late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko by an alliance of rebel forces led by Laurent-Desire Kabila.

Kabila, keen to mend fences with erstwhile hostile neighbours, proclaimed himself President soon after toppling the late dictator.

During his reign — between 1965 and 1997 — Mobutu neglected the population, forcing the majority to engage in illicit business like smuggling.

Smuggling is rampant along the DRC/Zambia border, which is inhabited mostly by ethnic groups that straddle the two frontiers.

Goods like maize flour, bread, petrol, agricultural produce, textiles (both new and secondhand), semi-processed metals like copper and cobalt, as well as precious stones like diamonds, freely find their way across borders.

Zambian Foreign Affairs Minister, Keli Walubita, urged the two neighbours during the talks to work closely to bring about faster economic growth and development.

“Let us concentrate on the way forward to the future rather than the past. Let us review and reassess economic potentials and opportunities and find solutions to problems affecting cooperation between our two countries,” Walubita said.

He said Zambia was committed to promoting trade, free movement of people and improving transport and communication links between the two countries.

Walubita also encouraged the DRC to help Zambia to set up a merchant bank in Lubumbashi – the capital of the bordering Katanga Province – under the state-owned Zambia National Commercial Bank.

“In our considered opinion, this will facilitate trade promotion and monetary payments for goods traded between the two countries,” the Minister said.

The Lusaka talks are being held under a bilateral arrangement known as the Joint Permanent Commission of Cooperation which though established between Zambia and then Zaire in 1982, has not been able to function effectively due to the lack of a proper administrative machinery in the former Zaire.

The present talks have generated a lot of interest in Zambia with the Zambia Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ZACCI), saying it was excited by the whole event.

“We are very keen … (and hope) that a bilateral trade agreement may be signed afterwards,” said executive Secretary of ZACCI, Gideon Phiri.

ZACCI sent a trade mission to the DRC to explore business opportunities following the fall of Mobutu. Since then, a number of business people from Zambia have crossed the border to clinch concrete trade arrangements.

Apart from trade matters, the bilateral talks are also expected to touch on the repatriation of thousands of refugees, most of them ex-soldiers who served in Mobutu’s dreaded Presidential Guard.

Zambian defence minister, Chitalu Sampa, returned home on Dec. 11 from the DRC capital of Kinshasa where he signed a defence protocol to ease tensions between the two countries and help the former soldiers return to the Congo.

Oluseyi Bajulaiye, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Representative in Zambia, said Kinshasa had called for urgent tripatite talks between Zambia, the UN refugee agency and the DRC over the formal repatriation of the ex- soldiers.

“We have no problem with this tripatite arrangement … ,” Bajulaiye said.

The tripatite talks aim to clear the former soldiers of possible charges which may link them to a plan to topple the new regime in Kinshasa.

“If they just walk back to their homes they risk having to face a few hard questions on their absence and return. In my opinion it is better if they obtain the authorisation of the government to return back,” he added.

Excerpt:

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, Jan 10 1998 (IPS)

Generations of families living on Zambia’s Copperbelt, where mining is the main activity, have had to deal with breathing foul-smelling air and infertile soils.

Now, industries have decided to clean up their act, and with assistance from a Norwegian consulting firm and a Zambian environmental group, they plan to start the first Cleaner Production Programme in 1998.

The programme will target the copper and cobalt mines of Zambia, as well as the consumer industries in the urbanised centres which span from Livingstone in the south of the country to Chililabombwe on the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the north.

The Norwegian consulting firm, Det Norske Veristas (DNV) and the Environmental Council of Zambia (ECZ) are behind the initiative to force industries — especially the mining companies — to work towards cleaner production.

During the first phase of the programme, managers and workrs will be trained in the concepts, methodology and techniques of cleaner production in targetted industries.

The programme, according to Perry Mujubeki, a professor of chemical engineering at the Copperbelt University in the central mining town of Kitwe, is long over due. In most Zambian industries “there are no treatment facilities and where they existed, they had long stopped functioning due to machinery breakdown and funds non-availability”, Mujubeki says.

“Consequently water, air and land pollution is increasing in the country. The Kafue River, which transcends the most industrialised and populated region of the country, receives much of the pollution,” he adds.

Liquid effluent ladened with heavy metals and sulphates have been allowed to drain into the Kafue. The river — a tributary of the Zambezi River which is shared by Zambia with Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique — is a source of dinking ater or millions in six urban settlements, including the capital city of Lusaka.

The emission of sulphur dioxide from the smelting process has polluted the skies over the Copperbelt. An estimated 200,000 metric tonnes of sulphur dioxide are discharged annually into the air.

According to health statistics, approximately 13 percent of the Copperbelt’s five million people now suffer from respiratory and related health problems.

Sulphur dioxide also has resulted in vast areas of the mining towns of Mufulira, Kitwe and Luanshya being rendered useless for vegetable and flower growing. In the rainy season, these areas are blanketed by ‘acid rain’, which turns the areas into semi-deserts as soils become more and more derelict due to acidic wet precipitation and the disposal of mining waste onto the land.

The environmental problems caused by dirty production on the Copperbelt can be traced back to the early 1970s when the Zambian government under the then State President, Kenneth Kaunda, nationalised the copper mining industry. The government assumed majority shares of 51 percent, Anglo-American, 27 percent, and the rest went to smaller shareholders.

DNV and ECZ began the Industrial Pollution Prevention Programme with little funds. They wanted to undertake a study of 30 industries, but ue to lack of funds ended up conducting an audit o only three companies.

The two organisations found that Zbian indusries suffered from problems of mismanagement, lack o operative skills nd environental awareness. It also was apparent that the industries needed to urgently adopt cleaner production procedures.

Last November, an awareness workshop on cleaner production for chief executives and decision makers within Zambian industries was held in the farming area of Chisamba, 50 kilometres north of Lusaka.

Speaking at this function, which was regrettably shunned by the Zambia Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Environment and Natural Resources Deputy Minister, Gibson Nkausu, noted that cleaner production had a direct bearing on the manufacturing sector, which accounts for 25 percent of Zambia’s the Gross Domestic Product and about 12 percent of the formal employment sector.

The Norwegian consulting firm, DNV, believes that by eliminating waste, Zambian companies can actually save money, decrease workers’ health risks, environmental hazards and improve their public image.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), 70 percent of all wastes and emissions from industrial processes can be prevented at source by the use of technically sound and economically profitble procedures.

And DNV notes that through investments in technically proven and profitable equipment or process changes, some European companies managed to make savings ranging between 48,800 U.S. Dollars and 223,000 U.S. Dollars.

Excerpt:

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, Jan 7 1998 (IPS)

Generations of families living on Zambia’s Copperbelt, where mining is the main activity, have had to deal with breathing foul-smelling air and infertile soils.

Now, industries have decided to clean up their act, and with assistance from a Norwegian consulting firm and a Zambian environmental group, they plan to start the first Cleaner Production Programme in 1998.

The programme will target the copper and cobalt mines of Zambia, as well as the consumer industries in the urbanised centres which span from Livingstone in the south of the country to Chililabombwe on the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the north.

The Norwegian consulting firm, Det Norske Veristas (DNV) and the Environmental Council of Zambia (ECZ) are behind the initiative to force industries — especially the mining companies — to work towards cleaner production.

During the first phase of the programme, managers and workers will be trained in the concepts, methodology and techniques of cleaner production in targetted industries.

The programme, according to Perry Mujubeki, a professor of chemical engineering at the Copperbelt University in the central mining town of Kitwe, is long over due. In most Zambian industries “there are no treatment facilities and where they existed, they had long stopped functioning due to machinery breakdown and funds non-availability”, Mujubeki says.

“Consequently water, air and land pollution is increasing in the country. The Kafue River, which transcends the most industrialised and populated region of the country, receives much of the pollution,” he adds.

Liquid effluent ladened with heavy metals and sulphates have been allowed to drain into the Kafue. The river — a tributary of the Zambezi River which is shared by Zambia with Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique — is a source of drinking water for millions in six urban settlements, including the capital city of Lusaka.

The emission of sulphur dioxide from the smelting process has polluted the skies over the Copperbelt. An estimated 200,000 metric tonnes of sulphur dioxide are discharged annually into the air.

According to health statistics, approximately 13 percent of the Copperbelt’s five million people now suffer from respiratory and related health problems.

Sulphur dioxide also has resulted in vast areas of the mining towns of Mufulira, Kitwe and Luanshya being rendered useless for vegetable and flower growing. In the rainy season, these areas are blanketed by ‘acid rain’, which turns the areas into semi-deserts as soils become more and more derelict due to acidic wet precipitation and the disposal of mining waste onto the land.

The environmental problems caused by dirty production on the Copperbelt can be traced back to the early 1970s when the Zambian government under the then State President, Kenneth Kaunda, nationalised the copper mining industry. The government assumed majority shares of 51 percent, Anglo-American, 27 percent, and the rest went to smaller shareholders.

DNV and ECZ began the Industrial Pollution Prevention Programme with little funds. They wanted to undertake a study of 30 industries, but due to lack of funds ended up conducting an audit of only three companies.

The two organisations found that Zambian industries suffered from problems of mismanagement, lack of operative skills and environmental awareness. It also was apparent that the industries needed to urgently adopt cleaner production procedures.

Last November, an awareness workshop on cleaner production for chief executives and decision makers within Zambian industries was held in the farming area of Chisamba, 50 kilometres north of Lusaka.

Speaking at this function, which was regrettably shunned by the Zambia Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Environment and Natural Resources Deputy Minister, Gibson Nkausu, noted that cleaner production had a direct bearing on the manufacturing sector, which accounts for 25 percent of Zambia’s the Gross Domestic Product and about 12 percent of the formal employment sector.

The Norwegian consulting firm, DNV, believes that by eliminating waste, Zambian companies can actually save money, decrease workers’ health risks, environmental hazards and improve their public image.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), 70 percent of all wastes and emissions from industrial processes can be prevented at source by the use of technically sound and economically profitable procedures.

And DNV notes that through investments in technically proven and profitable equipment or process changes, some European companies managed to make savings ranging between 48,800 U.S. Dollars and 223,000 U.S. Dollars.

Excerpt:

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, Jan 3 1998 (IPS)

Former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda failed to regain his freedom Friday after a judge adjourned the hearing of an application for his release, submitted by his lawyers.

Kaunda, arrested on Christmas Day in connection with an attempted coup by junior army officers in October, had been placed under house arrest on Wednesday after spending a week in jail.

Defying restriction orders under which he was placed on his release from prison, the 73-year-old ex-president spoke to reporters and supporters of his United National Independence Party (UNIP) at the Lusaka High Court when he appeared there on Friday.”It is not Kenneth Kaunda who is on trial. It is (President Frederick) Chiluba who is on trial,” he told wildly cheering supporters and journalists.

Under preservation of public security regulations restricting him to his home in the Kalundu suburb of Lusaka, Kaunda is not supposed to speak in public.

At the High Court hearing, Kaunda’s lawyer, Sakwiba Sikota, told the court that defence lawyers had only managed to get a copy of the regulations supporting the restriction order on Friday morning, despite attempts to obtain them earlier.

The court will reconvene Tuesday to decide whether Kaunda, who has not been formally charged, may apply for bail which Solicitor General Sam Chisulo so far has denied on the grounds that the Dec. 25 detention order served on him has been superceded by the restriction orders.

Under these orders, Kaunda is not supposed to take part in politics, give interviews to journalists or issue press statements while it is up to the police to determine who may visit him. Members of the public are not be allowed to be within 100 metres of his house.

The former president’s release from prison was the result of mediation by former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere and Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, who is the current chairman of the Organisation of African Unity.

However, at a press conference last Wednesday, Chiluba said the consideration being given to Kaunda would not be extended to the leader of another opposition party, Zambia Democratic Congress head Dean Mungomba, jailed under the same state of emergency powers as Kaunda had been.

Chiluba said the police had thus far detained 91 individuals suspected of being linked to the failed coup, staged on Oct.28.

He also promised that the police would give Kaunda the reasons for his detention with 14 days of his arrest, as had been the case with all other detainees.

Excerpt:

By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA, Jan 2 1998 (IPS)

Former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda failed to regain his freedom Friday after a judge adjourned the hearing of an application for his release, submitted by his lawyers.

Kaunda, arrested on Christmas Day in connection with an attempted coup by junior army officers in October, had been placed under house arrest on Wednesday after spending a week in jail.

Defying restriction orders under which he was placed on his release from prison, the 73-year-old ex-president spoke to reporters and supporters of his United National Independence Party (UNIP) at the Lusaka High Court when he appeared there on Friday.”It is not Kenneth Kaunda who is on trial. It is (President Frederick) Chiluba who is on trial,” he told wildly cheering supporters and journalists.

Under preservation of public security regulations restricting him to his home in the Kalundu suburb of Lusaka, Kaunda is not supposed to speak in public.

At the High Court hearing, Kaunda’s lawyer, Sakwiba Sikota, told the court that defence lawyers had only managed to get a copy of the regulations supporting the restriction order on Friday morning, despite attempts to obtain them earlier.

The court will reconvene on Tuesday to decide whether Kaunda, who has not yet been formally charged, may apply for bail, which Solicitor General Sam Chisulo has denied on the grounds that the Dec. 25 detention order served on him has been superceded by the restriction orders.

Under these orders, Kaunda is not supposed to take part in politics, give interviews to journalists or issue press statements while it is up to the police to determine who may visit him. Members of the public are not be allowed to be within 100 metres of his house.

The former president’s release from prison was the result of mediation by former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere and Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, who is the current chairman of the Organisation of African Unity.

However, at a press conference on Wednesday, Chiluba said the consideration being given to Kaunda would not be extended to the leader of another opposition party, Zambia Democratic Congress head Dean Mungomba, jailed under the same state of emergency powers as Kaunda had been.

Chiluba said the police had thus far detained 91 individuals suspected of being linked to the failed coup, staged on Oct.28. He also promised that the police would give Kaunda the reasons for his detention with 14 days of his arrest, as had been the case with all other detainees.

Excerpt: