By Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba
Farm-gate Scandal
Buying Zambeef Chiawa Farm, an Investment or Bail-out?
…the $13.5million scandal…
It appears the declaration of the national disaster and the respurces raised to combat it, is being used to loot the Treasury and impose extremely liberal policies as seen in the energy sector, decisions that would,under normal circumstances, require broad consultation and consensus.
Government has bought, without tender, budget or competitive process, the 8,000 hectares ZAMBEEF Chiawa Estate for $13.5 million.
Here are some troubling facts;
● Government has millions of hectares of fertile land most of it lying fallow.
● Government has set aside one million hectares of land across the country for farm block development but the development of infrastructure in farming blocks such as dams, bridges, roads and electricity, has been hampered because of lack of resources. But Government has chosen to buy a commercial farm at great cost.
● ZAMBEEF is currently troubled. British International Investment Plc ( formerly colonial Development Corporation and later Commonwealth Development Corporation), the UK development finance arm, invested $65million in Zambeef Products PLC securities in 2016 when the market value of the company was $59million. But now the company has a market capitalisation of £28million when the invested securities are due for maturity. BII has hired Lazard Inc. to help restructure and reschedule the debt.
● Government is using Zambia National Service and Zambia Correctional Service to buy the Zambeef Chiawa farm. There are orobably bigger and far better developed farms that are on sale that were not given similar opportunities bu Government.
● Among the investors of Zambeef is AfLife Financial Services. AfLife has investors that include President Hichilema’s long-time business partners; Mr. Muna Hantuba and Mr. Valentine Chitalu.
● We raised similar concerns when AfLife Financial Services were awarded to be fund Managers of the $40million Environmental Protection and Management Fund that has previously been housed at Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development.
● Similar decisions are troubling where multinationals are feasting on government resources. A mining firm, First Quantum Minerals (FQM), has been given a maize haulage contract to transport maize from Tanzania.
● Newgrowco Zambia Limited, a South African company registered in Zambia, has been given a $22million maize importation contract by the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU) without public competition, when government has already signed a government-to-government contract with the Union Republic of Tanzania to purchase 650,000 metric tonnes of maize worth US$225million.
Clearly the corruption under President Hichilema has quickly escalated to a deliberate and calculated utter plunder of national resources without restraint.
