Baltimore — Levy Mwanawasa, who took part in last week's U.S.-Africa Business Summit, became president of Zambia in January 2002 after a hotly contested election the previous month in which he polled 28.69 percent of the vote, less than two percent more than his closest rival.
Addressing the summit, Mwanawasa said Zambia has a lot to offer investors who are prepared to partner with Zambians for their mutual benefit. In an AllAfrica interview, he discussed his government's policy priorities, the fight against corruption and HIV/Aids and what he is doing to promote development and make the country a more attractive tourist and investment destination.
Zambia is one of the 18 countries slated for debt relief under the agreement that has been announced by G8 nations. What impact will that have on your country?
Debt relief in relation to Africa in general and to Zambia in particular is extremely important. These debts were incurred by previous administrations when some of us were still young. We not know what it is all about, but we have been told that it was used largely in the liberation wars. But those of us who have read books also know that most of this debt was used on subsidies, to over-employ in the public sector. We had politicians employed within parastatal organizations, and the government took over the salaries of party officials. So there was a lot of misuse of funds, and the current leadership is trying to repair the mess that was created over a long period of time.
It is unfortunate that we who are sweeping the mess which was left are the ones facing the blame that we created this debt in the first instance. So it is a good thing that this debt is being written off so that we can be given a clean slate to begin from. We are against partial debt write-off, as good as it may be. What we want is a complete write-off.
What is your case for Zambia as a good investment destination?
The people in Zambia are extremely hardworking. They are warmhearted, and the country is endowed with an abundance of natural resources. We have abundant sunshine, good soils, plenty of water. In fact, it is estimated that 40 percent of the water in southern Africa is located in Zambia. Those water resources could be exploited for irrigation purposes, for example.
Zambia has been a peaceful haven since independence. I will not argue with you if you say there is a lot of freedom of speech, and sometimes we tear ourselves. But it is the price that we have to pay for democracy. You allow people to express themselves. I say that it is better for people to say what is in them than suppress them.
So the investor coming to Zambia will be coming to a country that is receptive. It used to be said that the cost of doing business in Zambia was extreme. I agree, but for the past three-and-a-half years that my administration has been in power, we have fought relentlessly hard to improve our economic performance. You will find that the interest rates have not only gone down but they are stable. The exchange rates have also substantially gone down and, for the past three-and-a-half years, they have been stable - somewhere around 4800 kwacha to the dollar. When you compare that to rates that used to exist before we came to power - about 15,000 to 20,000 kwacha per dollar - that is a very big step. Inflation has also been under control. It has been hovering around 15-16 percent. But obviously we would like to do even better than that.
Good governance, the rule of law and transparency are all important issues for investors, donors and indeed for the people of Zambia. What is your record in that area?
The rule of law is my favorite subject. I am a lawyer myself, having practiced for about 30 years before I became president of Zambia. I am anxious that the law should govern our behavior. So right from the start, on the date that I was inaugurated, the 2nd of February 2002, I said that governance in Zambia would be of laws rather than men. We have checks and balances through the courts. If I exceed my powers, I can be challenged in court. Equally, we have the legislature, members of parliament debate freely how we carry out our duties. So I can say that the rule of law is very paramount in our country.
I want to mention, however, that if you came to Zambia, you would find local attacks on the government of the day. Sometimes the president will be insulted. It might create the impression that indeed we are a country that is governed by the rule of men rather than the rule of law but that is far from it. What will strike you the most is that our people are able to talk about these things freely, a thing which you will never see anywhere else. And when you examine what is happening, you will in fact see that the rule of law is paramount.
On the fight against corruption, we have regarded it as essential to national development. There can never be any sustainable development when you embrace corruption. Corruption is a cost to development. We have encouraged our people to be vigilant and to ensure that all cases of corruption are reported to the authorities.
What this has meant over the past three years is that public service officials and the people generally have come to respect public property. It is not uncommon to hear a person saying that if I engage in any corrupt practice, I am going to be in trouble. The deterrent effect that this crusade has had on the Zambian people is great, and I am encouraged by the fact that majority of our people have responded very well. They have realized that we have been rendered as poor as we are because the major factor is corrupt practices.
What more needs to be done to curb corruption?
There is room for our task force on corruption to improve their performance. The cases are moving too slow. As I told you, I practiced law as a criminal and constitutional lawyer for almost 30 years. And there was never a time when I handled and defended a case which took over one year to investigate. But in Zambia today, it is becoming common for these cases to pend for as long as four and five years. The immediate effect when you have a scenario like that is that crucial witnesses die and no matter how good a case was, if you have no witnesses, you cannot proceed. Secondly, the memories of the witnesses dim because of the lapse of time. A clever defense counsel will just destroy a good witness as a witness who cannot be believed. Thirdly, you have cases where witnesses who have given favorable evidence at the police station become hostile because over time, it becomes unfashionable to give evidence against the plunderers. Don't forget that these people have a lot of money. They can buy their way. My government wants these cases to move. There is a lot of money that the government has pumped into the investigation and prosecution of these cases. The donor community has contributed close to $5 million. This money is coming from the taxpayer both in Zambia and outside the country and it is important that we and the donor governments should be able to show tangible results.
Zambia has had two peaceful transfers of power following election, even though your own victory was contested by several of your opponents. What needs to happen to improve the electoral system?
My own election was doubted by my colleagues, and a number of them went to court as they are entitled to under the constitution. That case took three years to be completed. At the end of it, the court established that I was elected lawfully. But the worrying thing is how slowly we dispose of these election petitions. What would have happened, for example, if the court had decided that I was not properly elected? I have made a lot of appointments, a lot of decisions, on the basis that I was the president of Zambia. If my election had been nullified, what would have happened to those decisions, those things that I had done? I have been receiving a salary as the president of Zambia. Would I have been required to refund the money? This is one area which we are looking at to see if there could be a shorter way of disposing of these petitions.
The good thing however is that we allow for a peaceful legal process to prevail. Yes, some people will shout and write articles, but the majority of our people recognize that our constitution allows for aggrieved parties to any petition to go to court. What is required is to make that process faster because if it continues to be as slow as it is, then people lose hope in the fairness of the process, the elections.
Can you tell us what Zambia is doing to combat HIV/Aids?
HIV/Aids is a very big problem for my country. When I came into office, about three-and-a-half years ago, the infection rate was somewhere around 26 percent. We have worked very hard to sensitize people to abstain. If you can't abstain, you have to use a condom or you have to be faithful to one partner. We have reduced the rate to just under 16 percent. Sixteen percent is still high. That translates into just about 800,000 people infected. When you have a population of 11.2 million, 800,000 people is rather too high and so we must continue to work hard to bring the infection rate down.
This disease is no longer considered to be just another disease. It is an economic factor because there are so many teachers who have died from this pandemic and others too sick to provide any service. There are many nurses who have died or who are too sick to provide a service. They are creating vacancies and these vacancies must be filled. People must be trained.
We are grateful for the fact that the international community has helped us with money which has been used in our sensitization programmes, money which we have used in the acquisition of antiretroviral drugs. But having said that, I am of the view that the international community can do more. We are a poor country and we cannot meet all that is required of us as a government. The international community must come to our rescue.
An unfortunate thing about the HIV/AIDS pandemic is that it has created a number of orphans because their parents died. Most of them have to be looked after by ageing parents if any exist and/or by a few concerned relatives. But in the majority of cases, these children - some of whom once belonged to prosperous families - have taken to the streets. The surviving relatives have grabbed property from them, leaving these children destitute. We have a growing cadre of street children. As a government, we find that unacceptable because if we are not careful, if we don't do anything about the cadre, the culture of streetism. With the mentality in the streets, you can't develop well as a nation. So we the leadership in Zambia, as everywhere in Africa, are determined that we should fight this pandemic. We are cooperating with the international world to see if a cure can be found. I remain optimistic that a cure will actually be found some day. It might take a bit long, but God will not neglect his people, especially if they want to improve their lot.
What are the economic policy goals and priorities of your administration?
When we came into office in 2002, the economy of Zambia was down on its knees. The exchange rate was very much down, and the price of almost everything was up. As if that was not enough, two weeks after we came into office, Anglo American Corporation announced that it was going to withdraw from copper mining in Zambia.
You see, Zambia is a major copper mining country. That meant that if the mines owned by Anglo American closed down, it would spell doom for our country. But the government announced that we would make use of our meager resources, and that none of the mines was going to shut down. We [said] we would work hard to keep them running until such a time that we found a strategic partner.
We took over the mines and, for two years, operated them until we found a strategic partner. The price of copper is doing extremely well, so we are back in business. There were some mines [that had been] closed at the time that we came into government. They had left people unpaid, so that problem was being [passed onto] the government. These mines have not only been reopened but we have also paid the people.
One of the other early things we did was to ensure that we put agriculture at the center stage of our economic activity. We believe that agriculture is one sector which can push the economy up. You may wish to know that agriculture contributes something like 18 percent to GDP. The people responded very well to this drive, and within a year of our coming into office, we had turned agricultural production around. We were depending on imported foodstuff and handouts, but now we produce enough to feed ourselves and to be able to export to other countries.
This year, the rains have failed us and we have not produced as much as we expected. But because we had a very successful harvest last year, we have enough maize, for example, from last year's harvest to supplement this year's. If we are going to import any foodstuff, it will be at really manageable levels, which will ensure that we retain our pride as a nation.
In addition, we have encouraged tourism. One of the Seven Wonders of the World is based in Zambia, Victoria Falls. We have plenty of wildlife, plenty of tourism sites, which we can show to the world. In the second year of our being in office, we created 16,500 jobs, which was not a mean achievement by any means. Before we came into office, employment in the tourism sector was going down. The response from the local people has been fantastic, and companies from outside have come to invest.
Mining will continue to be a strategic sector in our economy, so it is still being given a lot of attention. Two huge mines have opened in the North Eastern Province. There are a lot of other minerals being discovered, particularly in the North Western and North Eastern Province. These include emeralds, cobalt, iron ore, gold, diamonds, and although no discovery has yet been made, oil. We are certain that we will find it, because how is it that Namibia has got oil, Angola has got oil, Congo has got oil, and yet we pass through the same stream? I am sure that with hard exploration on our part, we should find that.
We want investors from outside the country to come and do business. There is a lot of poverty in the country. We cannot, using our own resources, exploit this abundant wealth. As I said at the Corporate Council on Africa, we want investors who are going to partner with the local people. It is only when the local people realize that this investment is to their benefit that they will give it support. The opportunities available in Zambia are great for everybody and I invite you to come and see for yourself.
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Countries that are your neighbors have had difficulties - there was the long war in Angola, a major conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that has claimed several million lives and ongoing unrest in Zimbabwe. How has Zambia been affected?
I have indicated that one of the reasons we have been rendered poor as we are is that Zambia spent so much money in the struggle for the liberation of Africa. We had problems in Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Congo. Relative peace has returned to Angola, but there are still a lot of landmines there. The Benguela railway there is the shortest route to the sea from Zambia, but we can't use it because of the mines. It must be demined before we can begin using it.
The situation in the Congo is extremely worrying. We were expecting that by the 30th of June, there would be free elections. But it is very clear that the elections will not take place and the problems in that country are likely to intensify. We can do a lot of business with Congo. It is a big country. We can be exporting our agricultural produce there. But, to say the least, it doesn't look like an organized way of running a country.
Then we have Zimbabwe. A lot of demands have been made on the Zambian government to denounce the Zimbabwean government. But what must be remembered is that Zambia is a neighbor to Zimbabwe. The United States is not a neighbor to Zimbabwe. Zambia is a poor country. The United States is not a poor country. It should also be remembered that almost all our exports and imports have to pass through Zimbabwe. We have a small outlet through Botswana but the Kazungula bridge [across the Zambezi River] is a pontoon which is constantly breaking down. So that route is not reliable. And then we have the Tazara railway, which goes to Tanzania, and that is not also reliable because of the pilfering of goods at Dar es Salaam.
The only reliable route therefore is through Zimbabwe to South Africa. We cannot afford as a nation to be hostile to our neighbor because if the neighbor in the south decided to be hostile, it is us who are going to feel the pinch. That does not mean that when we see things going wrong, we will keep quiet. I and my ministers have had bilateral discussions with our colleagues in Zimbabwe. I will not tell what we have discussed but I feel that silent diplomacy is a better diplomacy than where I have to go to the United Nations and say the United Kingdom, United States, Japan, Italy, you must hear that Zimbabwe is evil because of this and this. No. I will end up pleasing these countries but at the same time I will end up cutting my own feet.
Despite all these difficulties, Zambia has remained peaceful. We in Zambia are so peaceful that we are attracting those who are running away from what they perceive is persecution. A typical example is the Zimbabwean white commercial farmers who have left their country and come to Zambia. We have allowed them in. In fact they are participating in our agricultural revolution and the tobacco industry has shot up by almost three times. One can say that the contribution of the white farmers has been helpful. We have received refugees from other countries like Burundi and Congo itself. We welcome them. But we insist that they be useful and beneficial to the country instead of bringing problems, because we are not prepared to import chaos.
