IMF, World Bank pressurising govt to sell off parastatals including Zesco – Ng’uni

IMF, World Bank pressurising govt to sell off parastatals including Zesco – Ng’uni

By Fanny Kalonda

THE IMF, World Bank and our so-called development partners are bent on strangling Zambia economically, says former deputy finance minister Newton Ng’uni.

He explained that this is by punishing the country for participating directly in the economy through running parastatals.

“The IMF and the World Bank has been pressurising Zambia’s government to sell off parastatals including Zesco since the 1980s. They forced Zambia through the fastest privatisation programme ever known to man in the 1990s. Even now the pressure is on. Thanks to president MC (Michael Chilufya) Sata for reviving a holding parastatal, the IDC, at least we have some semblance of a parastatal sector,” N’guni said. “And yet the British government can own companies but the Zambian government cannot! During the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis, the British government, the USA government and many more developed countries had the sheer audacity to provide massive stimulus packages in billions to their parastatals as well as to private companies to cover losses and revive their economies. Most, if not all, that money was borrowed from the market through the sale of bonds or just printed by their central banks!”

He said a successful parastatal subsector “will challenge their business interests directly while private companies are easier to use to syphon wealth from the country”.

“But in Zambia the IMF and the World Bank in cahoot with developed countries, our so-called development partners, are bent on strangling Zambia economically by punishing her for participating directly in the economy through running parastatals. Since they run parastatals themselves which make losses at times just like ours and if the issue is loss-making, why don’t they just provide technical support to our country to help us run those parastatals profitably since they are quick to provide such support in other sectors? So the issue is not loss making but securing their economic and other interests through self-serving international political economy. A successful parastatal subsector will challenge their business interests directly while private companies are easier to use to syphon wealth from our country through transfer pricing, tax evasion tax avoidance (knowing that they will not be caught) or simply banking money in tax havens they control,” wrote Ng’uni on his Facebook page. “British International Investment (BII), the British parastatal, has taken over ZAMBEEF through debt-for-equity swap and now owns 58 per cent of the Zambian company. The Zambian government chose to spend almost $14 million through IDC to acquire Zambeef’s Chiawa Farm instead of acquiring equity. BII now has its sights on offering 20 per cent to 40 per cent premium (over the current market price of shares of £0.054 per share). At the suggested premium, BII would pay about $20 million to acquire an asset worth $165 million. The Zambian government through IDC was to spend about $14m to acquire one asset of Zambeef, a price just $6m short of what the British Govt through BII may pay to acquire the entire company. Kwena uwatulowa mukali, tabanaluse cacine. Surely, the Minister of Finance has been borrowing billions on our behalf he couldn’t find $20m or even $50m to acquire Zambeef, a prime asset with sprawling land in Mpongwe, Chisamba and elsewhere? He couldn’t even link that amount to premium on sale of mines (Konkola Copper Mines, Mopani Copper Mines)? Doesn’t he know that selling just 10,000 hectares of the 40,000 hectares of the Mpongwe Farm to civil servants and miners would raise enough money for us not only repay the money borrowed to acquire Zambeef shares but leave enough money to invest in power generation, funding Lusaka- Ndola dual Carriageway, complete King Lewanika University in Mongu and other such capital projects? Surely, surely what is wrong with us?”