THE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION (IDC) WAS A BAD IDEA, IS A SCAM AND IT NEEDS TO BE DONE AWAY WITH BY THE UPND (PART 2)
By Shalala Oliver Sepiso
BACKGROUND AND CASE STUDY OF INDENI REFINERY
To understand the role INDECO had, and what IDC was brought in to try and do, lets look at the case of fuel importation into Zambia and indeed how some industries in the energy sector came about. The case study here will be of INDENI under INDECO.
At Zambia’s independence in 1964, the country used to get its fuel from a refinery near Umtali in Rhodesia. Multi-national Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) such as Agip, Caltex, Mobil Oil, Shell-BP and Total used to import petroleum products into the country, which they then supplied to the local market. But on 11th November 1965, Ian Douglas Smith proclaimed the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) of Southern Rhodesia from the British Crown. He also closed the borders with Zambia, which opposed the Ian Smith regime. At the time of UDI, over 90 per cent of Zambia’s imports and exports were carried by the Rhodesian railways from the Copperbelt to the ports of Beira and Lourenzo Marques (now Maputo) in Mozambique as well as Durban in South Africa. The minority regime led by Ian Smith, soon after UDI, prohibited the conveyance of petroleum products through her territory to Zambia, imposed export tax on coal and threatened Zambia by many hostile acts ranging from psychological warfare to actual sabotage. Rhodesia used financial restrictions, theft of Zambian assets domiciled in Rhodesia, economic blackmail and sabotage to punish Zambia for its support to the freedom fighters for the independence of Angola, Mozambique, Southern Rhodesia itself, South West Africa (now Namibia) and South Africa. This blocked the trade routes Zambia was using to bring in fuel from Rhodesia as well as those it was using to export copper to Asia and Europe.
With no way out, Zambia was faced with a fuel crises. It was also faced with a reality that it urgently needed its own industries and its own infrastructure to develop the economy. Before Zambia could build facilities like pipelines and refineries, it needed to sold the fuel equation. So it started, first, as ridiculous as this may sound, to airlift fuel into the country. In fact, with trade routes closed, even some copper was now being airlifted by plane out of the country for export. The air-lift of copper from Ndola to Dar es Salaam lasted from December 1965 until May 1966 and it was termed the “Copper Air Bridge”. But flying fuel into Zambia was not cheap.
Before the Chinese came in to build the TAZARA – an expensive and difficult endeavour with more than 1000 tunnels on the Tanzania side alone – the Great North Road was quickly built to link Kapiri Mposhi to Dar es Salaam. The road was not tarred for many years and it provided problems for drivers. But it became the preferred route for bringing in fuel and taking copper out for export.
It was at this point that Zambia decided to establish a company with trucks that could bring in fuel from Dar es Salaam port and deliver copper to the ports for export. The Zambia-Tanzania Road Services (ZAM-TAN) was established. ZAMTAN was one of the companies under INDECO. ZAMTAN was a brainchild of Valentine Musakanya, who enlisted and got Kaunda to appoint Andrew Sardanis as the the head of The Industrial Development Corporation (INDECO) Group of Zambia. Musakanya then got Sardanis to sit down the with Italian Ambassador in Lusaka to come up with an agreement for the transport company. Kaunda agreed with Julius Nyerere to set up ZAMTAN and six months later, the first trucks came in to ply the route between the Copperbelt and Dar es Salaam. These were Italian FIAT trucks. All hundreds of them. The headquarters of ZAMTAN was in Kitwe at the place now called ZAMTAN compound near Kafue river bridge as one enters Kitwe from East. The Italians saved us Zambians by giving us more than 200 FIAT trucks. At its strength, ZAMTAN had more than 450 FIAT trucks including tankers and lorries. The ZAM-TAN trucks were carrying cooper from the Zambian copper belt to the Tanzanian coast and bringing general goods and oil to Zambia on the return journey. Oil was being brought by tankers and also lorries which brought the oil in drums. The company had a labour force of 2,000 people and it was able to carry 20,000 tons of cargo a month both ways.
This 2,400-kilometre highway from Dar-es-salaam to Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia, known to lorry drivers because of its hazards as the “hell run” became the main route for fuel supplies. The Great North Road passed through the Tanzanian highlands and dropped to the Masai plain. It was lashed by rainstorms and scorched by the sun. Sometimes rains or dust on the road was so bad that headlights were needed. The rain reduced the road to mud. The lorries churned it into ruts and holes. Some lorries get stuck in the mud, others skidded off it and overturned. The regulation time for the trip from the Copperbelt to Dar es Salaam was seven days, including a day’s rest at the border stop of Mbeya, in Tanzania. As a result, some drivers sometimes simply feel asleep from exhaustion and crashed. The biggest danger of all was the cargo: a spark – or even the sun’s heat – could explode the oil. In the hills of Mpika, many drivers lost their lives during the ZAMTAN era. There were six-tan staging points (three in Zambia and three in Tanzania) equipped to repair the vehicles if necessary. However, communication was another challenge as drivers relied on word of mouth by fellow drivers to facilitate the bringing in of help or supplies. “It was pure hell using the road during rainy seasons as trucks and tankers frequently broke down and got stuck in the mud with some overturning, scattering copper bars in the bushes, along some stretches of the road,” one old driver recounts.
Now the reader is reminded that, soon after independence, Zambia, then, did not have many experienced long-distance drivers to drive the hundreds of FIAT trucks brought in by Italy. From 1966 when the fuel run began, more than 60 men died on the road in the first year. Since this route was the only choice for the oil lift as a result of the sanctions against Rhodesia, the Zambian government offered substantial payment to lorry owners prepared to risk “hell run”. Zambians were ill equipped to drive such trucks and the only place where experienced drivers were available was Somalia as they were already using same trucks across East Africa. And so, Zambia enlisted many Somalian drivers to come and drive the ZAMTAN trucks.
For the time it ran, this INDECO company – a State Owned Enterprise – was critically important to Zambia even though it was not very viable and profitable. It could not have run without state funding and it saved a nation from collapse. But it could not be sustained.
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