[By Melvin Chisanga]
NOT knowing that Hot FM already had it determined through their Hot Seat programme, I had resolved to write a nonpolitical article this week. The moment I heard the host of the Hot Seat announce that his guest was Ms Edith Nawakwi, and was going to talk about a wide range of issues of national interest including privatisation, I knew Bally (opposition UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema) was going to be her sitting duck, knowing how scathing she is about him.
True to my expectation, madam Nawakwi, despite having just emerged from her political hibernation of months on end, did not waste time to, among all the people who played a role in the infamous privatisation of national assets, single out Bally alone for criticism. For her, it was one of those rare opportunities to have a dig at Bally, in a way to try and slow down his popularity which has recently been growing at the speed of knots.
In a clearly well-rehearsed manner, she spewed successive doses of her hate for Bally for as long as the programme, which as if to give her latitude to empty all her cannons, lasted.
Being a mother that she calls herself, one would have expected her to concentrate on rebuilding the perception of Legana Sausages which, after being dragged into serious allegations not too long ago that even ended in litigation, is still negatively perceived by many Zambians, than feeding the entire nation on her breast of falsehoods, as if her life depends on it.
The privatisation of Zambia’s assets and tribalism have been the two attack strategies of last resort that have reared their ugly heads whenever successive regimes have run out of ideas on how to dent Bally’s overly clean record which passes all the integrity tests with aplomb wherever it is applicable. But what is this animal called privatisation and why did it happen in Zambia?
I have heard a lot of ignorant statements about privatisation from different sections of society and perhaps it is time we brought one another up to speed about this issue. To try and do this most ably, I shall briefly try to answer the what, why and how questions pertaining to privatisation, in that order.
The what question is simply answered by the definition, and the simplest is that it entails the sale of public assets to private owners. So in order for privatisation to take place, there has to be a government with assets to sell and a private company or individual with money to buy the assets.
But since a government will always have people running it as would a company, the only missing link here is the agent who should help the two parties to achieve their selling and buying goals for the seller and the buyer respectively. Both Bally and Adada (President Edgar Lungu), among others, belonged here during the process. Did you know?
But what would be the rationale of a government placing its own assets into private hands? Does this not outrightly compromise a government’s hold on power seeing that its economic aspect, to the extent of the privatisation, now begins to be controlled by the private sector? Do the pros of privatisation really outweigh the cons?
Without going into details, allow me to posit that after the fall of the Soviet Union, which had for a long time played the big brother role for many African countries including Zambia, these African states which were only politically independent but economically still heavily dependent on donor aid to fund their operations, had to look elsewhere for help – the West.
As one of the conditions for help among others such as democratisation, the West proposed privatisation as one of the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) that would restore efficiency to the African economies that had become so ineffective because of lack of seriousness with public enterprises.
Having just transitioned from UNIP to MMD and with the economy doing so badly due to poor copper prices, Zambia was in a catch-22 situation to either accept the Western world’s SAPs and live to later start pointing fingers about who played what role, like we have been doing especially towards elections, or decline them altogether and perish. Being the most precious thing that it is, we chose life over death. We chose to put up with privatisation as it was the lesser of the two evils.
The most misunderstood part of privatisation in this country, in my view, are the methods by which the whole process was handled. I get a bit more concerned with our level of understanding things, especially when I hear even the elite openly talk about how Zambian assets were privatised, with disgruntled undertones. Really?
Out of the six methods of privatisation that I know, I can hardly point at any that favours the government involved. I was neither there where privatisation was taking place, nor am I in any way privy to the dynamics that governed the entire process, which Ms Nawakwi was part of. But for the sake of this article, allow me to cite the public auction and direct negotiations approaches to privatisation, for example.
What comes to your mind whenever you hear the term ‘AUCTION’? As for me, the immediate thing is ‘CHEAP’. Anyone who has attended an auction in any capacity will agree that an auction sale seldom matches market price for a number of reasons, some of which could be desperation or simply the owner’s desire to dispose of something. Between the two, it goes without saying that the MMD government was motivated to sell more by the former than the latter.
Even if we looked at direct negotiations, for example, if you have been in business like myself, you will agree that the most difficult situation to ever find oneself in, in a business transaction is at the weaker bargaining end. Just like in the case of an auction sale, the only time you will get a good deal, whether you are the buyer or seller, is when you are not desperate. Otherwise, you will either get a song for a fortune or pay a fortune for a song, depending on which side of the transaction device you are on.
One thing I have come to understand and like with agency in these transactions, which was Bally’s role in privatisation, is that whether you are making a loss or a fortune, the agent has to be paid. The furthest the agent can go to in sympathising with you is maybe just to reduce their commission percentage if you plead for mercy. Otherwise, they will always get what is due to them.
Understanding privatisation from this vantage point therefore, I’m of the view that we have continued pointing fingers at each other because we did not understand the whole essence of it: achieving institutional efficiency.
Meant to help place poorly managed government enterprise into more effective private hands, privatisation was not intended to be a perpetual source of income for the government, as many may suppose.
Those of you who think privatisation was meant to be a money spinner for government, where do you think the government would find companies to be selling all the time? Better still, as the government, what did they do with the money realised from selling these assets, because it wouldn’t make sense if they sold with the view of buying other companies.
As I draw towards the closure of my submission on this topic, which has needlessly aroused sad emotions about the past, I am of the opinion that the fact that Zambian assets were conveyed into private hands using the laid down procedure is what determines the success of the process in the grand scheme of things. Just because Ms Nawakwi and her MMD government was inept to turn around the economic fortunes of this country does not warrant all those attacks on Bally as if he arm-twisted anyone to sign up for any deal.
All those issues of which companies later emerged to be owned by Bally are just antics of armchair politics, only meant to stop the sun from ever shining on the people of Zambia. In fact, unlike even Bally who has never even held any government position in this country, if there is anyone who deserves any blame for privatisation, it is Nawakwi herself because if she had said no as minister, Bally had no powers to force any deal down her throat.
The morality aspect of the entire process is something I may not be competent enough to comment on because it sometimes can be very personal, subjective and relative. But if it is about Bally accepting the chairmanship of the business of whose sale he had earlier been involved in, how is that an issue? Can’t one even buy a property or a part of it as long as they were at some point involved with the same somehow?
Going forward, I know smear campaigns will burgeon especially as we get closer to elections next year, but let them have a semblance of facts and be practiced with love where possible. There is no justification for such hate that Ms Nawakwi showed on radio. It doesn’t show good morals to the younger ones.
Otherwise, take heart Bally because more of such will still come to test your tolerance, albeit in different forms. Don’t fall in their traps of hate speech. They are and will ever remain below your level. (Fikapwa) it shall come to pass.
chisangamelvin@yahoo.com