HOW FLAVIA MUSAKANYA REFUSED TO BE BRIBED
By Kennedy Limwanya
I must admit that I’m not among the lucky ones who were privileged to have known Mrs Flavia Musonda Musakanya at close range.
The closest I ever did was during the days I was a waiter at Oasis Restaurant in Lusaka 27 years ago.
Mrs Musakanya and her husband, former Bank of Zambia governor Valentine Shula Musakanya were frequent guests at the restaurant.
So, my privilege was that I could serve their table whenever they came for lunch.
There was a special table that was reserved for the couple, retired senior police officer Mwenda Muyunda, former Finance minister John Mwanakatwe and co-owner of Oasis Restaurant Morris Attala.
Many a time, even the Musakanyas’ son, Shula, would join them.
It always felt special when assigned to serve this table of emminent personalities.
Mr Musakanya, who had been Zambia’s first indigenous Secretary to the Cabinet after attaining political independence in 1964, would often crack jokes as he and the others enjoyed their lunch.
I could tell from a distance that the Musakanyas’ were very close.
Mr Musakanya, oftentimes, addressed his wife as Flavia or bana Shula.
By the way, Mr Musakanya is one of the people who were tried in the aftermath of the 1980 abortive coup which had sought to overthrow President Kenneth Kaunda.
After being convicted, Mr Musakanya, who also served as nominated member of Parliament and minister of state for education, was sentenced to death.
He won the case on appeal and was released in 1985, but that was after having served close to five years in prison.
He died in 1994.
Twenty-six years after her husband’s death, Mrs Musakanya, too, has gone to join her better half.
She died in Lusaka on July, 5, 2020 at the age of 83.
From the messages I have read from those who knew her well, I can tell that Mrs Musakanya, who will be put to rest today, had a strong character.
In his book, The Depths of My Footprints, former Finance minister Ng’andu Magande gives reference to Mrs Musakanya.
He narrates how, in 1991, she was involved in having him appointed by President Frederick Chiluba as Zambia National Commercial Bank managing director.
What kind of person was she?
“I had known her while at MCTI [Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry] . . . as a resilient and enterprising business lady,” writes Mr Magande in the book that was published in August 2018.
Here, again, is something more which most people may not be aware of.
This has earned my respect for Mrs Musakanya.
It is an incident that is told in an article written by American author and journalist Helen Epstein which appeared in the New York Review of Books in December 2014.
Under the headline “Colossal Corruption in Africa”, Epstein writes about how notorious chief executive officer of the London-based conglomerate Lonrho, Tiny Rowland, once tried to bribe Mrs Musakanya.
During the 1960s, while other British businessmen were fleeing black-ruled African countries, Rowland’s Lonrho was buying up their mines, farms, and manufacturing plants.
Epstein explains Rowland’s story based on information she got from Zambian businessman Andrew Sardanis who had briefly worked for Lonrho.
She writes as follows:
***When Sardanis arrived at Lonrho in 1971, its chief accountant handed him the records of the company’s African holdings. Right away, Sardanis realized something was amiss. Some Lonrho companies had no books at all; others were recording assets he knew they didn’t have.
There were also a series of line items known as “investments in people”—bribes, mainly to African strongmen and the people around them.
Six months after joining Lonrho, Sardanis submitted his resignation in disgust. He quit just in time. Later that summer, a South African stockbroker initiated criminal proceedings against Lonrho for misleading shareholders about the value of a copper mine in what was then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Lonrho was also exporting copper from that mine in violation of UN sanctions against the white supremacist Ian Smith regime. Several members of Lonrho’s board of directors were beginning to ask questions about the “investments in people.”
One of the people Rowland invested in was Flavia Musakanya, wife of the governor of the Bank of Zambia. Shortly after the South African stockbroker launched his lawsuit, Rowland paid for Mrs. Musakanya’s medical treatment at a London hospital. When she was feeling better, he arranged for a chauffeur to drive her to Asprey, the Bond Street department store that among much else supplies jewelry and other accessories to the royal family. “I can’t afford this,” she told the chauffeur. “Don’t worry, just choose what you want,” she says he replied. “It will all be taken care of.” She chose to go back to the hotel, where the chauffeur presented her with an envelope stuffed with British banknotes. This she also refused. Years later she told Tom Bower, Rowland’s biographer, “Our relationship with Tiny was never quite the same again.”
Rowland wanted Flavia to agree that his problems in South Africa were the result of his anti-apartheid, pro-African nationalist views.
They don’t come like Mrs Musakanya anymore.
May her soul rest in peace.
Picture 1. Mrs Flavia Musakanya
Picture 2. Mr Valentine Musakanya