Friday, April 19, 2024

LAP GreenN insists its still the owner of Zamtel

Share

Dear Editor,

According to the letter below from Libyan telecom company LAP GreenN as attached, its still the owner of Zamtel and the debt to ZTE should be on LAP GreenN instead of Zambia Government. Why did PF government plunder with LAP GreenN for the debt of US$103 million on the projects of Zamtel’s Global System for Mobile (GSM) expansion phase IV and Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS)?

In fact, Zambia has been already under high debt ratio and any new borrowing should be used for new works instead of bailing out a debt incurred by a foreign company investor. Even former President Sata rejected the original proposal because of the same reason.

Under this situation, Finance Minister Chikwanda still insisted on pushing the loan approval through Cabinet with unseemly haste on November 17 of 2014, less than a week after President Michael Sata’s funeral.

Obviously, this is an ill-advised decision. Zambian is calling for the termination of procedure to settle the debt to a Chinese company on behalf of a foreign investor to waste taxpayer’s money.

Background:

FINANCE minister Alexander Chikwanda wants Cabinet to approve a US$103 million loan in order to repay a LAP GreenN loan obtained in 2011 to upgrade Zamtel.According to sources, Chikwanda is seeking the US$103 million (K656 million) loan approval from the Export-Import (EX-IM) Bank of China to pay ZTE on behalf of LAP GreenN.

In June 2010, the Libyan African investment Porfolio Network (LAP GreenN) acquired a 75 per cent stake in Zamtel, a state-owned telecommunication company for US$257 million, a decision the Patriotic Front government reversed in 2012.

In 2011, LAP GreenN obtained a US$103 million loan from ZTE to implement Zamtel’s Global System for Mobile (GSM) expansion phase IV and Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) projects.

Ministry of Finance sources say Chikwanda wants his ministry to undertake the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the loan.“This is not the first time that the minister is bringing up this proposal. He tried to get Cabinet approval when president [Michael] Sata was alive and he [Sata] rejected it on grounds that government could not repay a loan obtained by a foreign company,” government sources revealed.

“Even when it came to the consultative stage, the minister was advised that government can easily maintain the status quo on the matter or better still instruct Zamtel to come up with its own loan repayment programme through borrowing from local commercial banks. But we are surprised that he has gone back to Cabinet to push for this loan.”

LAP GreenN1
LAP GreenN

17 COMMENTS

  1. Sata’s decision to repossess ZAMTEL was one of the best 2 or 3 decisions he made. Zamtel belongs to Zambians and not to Lybians who are now fighting each other. Today we would have had some ISIS operatives at Zamtel. RB should be caged for selling Zamtel and Finance bank.

    • Sata belonged to Medieval age. He was the worst thing ever happened to Zambian politics. A man full of venom and rhetoric but no vision, no capacity and capability to chart a development agenda based on enterprising people. He was a product of socialist era, had his roots in freebies mindset and had all the vices that any man with “complex” suffers from- too much talk, always agitating, demanding, lazy, narrow-minded, morally corrupt.
      Nationalising Zamtel was one of his worst decisions. Creating districts, spending like a mad man, being selfish by occupying statehouse when he knew he was unwell and becoming a drain, a parasite on hungry people, was his worst decision. Give back Zamtel for efficiency.

    • And as for Finance Bank. Wake up from your slumber. Can you compare FNB with money laundering Mahtani and Barkat Ali. Finance Bank since its inception was involved in bribing politicians, getting free money (deposits from ZRA, ministries, ZNPF/NAPSA, ZSIC, Workmen Compensation Fund) and minting billions on those free funds. Finance Bank ripped off Zesco by buying forex at cheap and lending their own money at exorbitant interest rate. Finance Bank under Mahtani is a den of mafia. Holding 96.5% share in contravention of Banking and Financial Services Act. Let new PF government give the bank to management and staff that has suffered for long. Let Zambian entrepreneurship be rewarded.

    • @1.1& 1.2 if Sata was the worst thing that ever happened to Zambia, then, your pathetic lumpen father who brought you into this world must be ultra worse. How you can say such dung against a man who held his own, defies logic. Anyway you were fathered by a lazy parent who cant work as hard as Sata did and one good thing is that your ka father will never equal Sata in his whole life time including the life time of you his useless kidos.

  2. PFoolish Zambians were cheering when Sata nationalised Zamtel. Well, it’s payback time. The Libyans either still own Zamtel or they should be compensated for the confiscation of their investment. Once the Libyans stop fighting each other, they will be coming for their money. This is a case that Zambia cannot win in the international courts.

  3. Sata didnt want to pay the loan, he had no plans of paying any loan back, Euro Bond included. I see Chikwanda doing the same. Lets hear Lungu has to say.

  4. Zamtel is for Zambians. There is no country worth its sought that can undress itself by selling or indeed outsource its telecommunication to a private company. That’s why MMD lost the elections in 2011.

    • I am afraid next time they will sell all the NATIONALS, including animals and plants, to foreigners. Zamtel belongs to Zambians, please!!! Awe mwandi sure! Talema naimwe manje. Why mu
      behavor so as if you have no brains?? Get what your fellow Zambians are saying. Forget about politics and think of nothing, but your country, Please!!

    • Every first world and fast developing country in this world has no interest in any of the telecommunication companies. They monitor traffic and sensitive communications and activities through ICT and not stupid towers kind of propaganda that useless thugs who live on others hard earned money and occupy high positions in Zamtel dish out to gullible people. Nationalisation of Zamtel was a bad decision. It shall be privatised and if goverment and others think strongly against giving it to foreigners, just give it to Zambians with a condition that shares can only be owned by fellow Zambians.

  5. Sata was more than right in reversing the f00lishness of RB on Zamtel and LPM on ZAmbia Railways.We Zambians sure deserve to own what is ours, especially that built by us. RB should just relocate to Benghazi if he so wishes, eyamba ukutumpa

  6. Back in the day, I broke the news that the money behind RP Capital Partners of the Cayman Islands, was none other than Dany Gertler, the grandson of the founder of the Tel Aviv diamond exchange.

    It struck me as very odd, that in the name of ‘privatisation’, Zambian state owned Zamtel would be ‘sold’ to the Libyan government.

    At that time, the Libyan government was headed by col. Ghadaffi. Today, Libya has been broken into several pieces, courtesy of 40,000 NATO bombing raids that put islamist psychos in charge. Just as they’re trying to do in Syria, and later Iran, Russia and China (read the extremely influential Zbigniew Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard – American Primacy And It’s Geostrategic Imperatives).

  7. Zamtel was RB’s mistake. To sell a communications company to a foreign company and to Libya where the restrictions or communication was well known. RB is a greedy old man. Sold it like niyanyoko! Now Zambia will be in a sticky situation.

    • Zamtel under Lapgreen was giving run to Airtel and MTN. It is a deadwood now under state appointed PF thugs and cadres. Give remaining parastatals to Zambian professionals to run. They can pay back the debt through future profits.

Comments are closed.

Article contents

Read more

Local News

Discover more from Lusaka Times-Zambia's Leading Online News Site - LusakaTimes.com

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading