By Brian Mulenga

Zambia Airways. For 3 and a half decades Zambia had a national airline. It trained a highly skilled workforce and it connected Zambia to the world. It, however, was also a political football.

Its strong unions, even the pilots were unionized, its well-educated workforce, its elite position in the Zambian political conscious and the access it provided to certain things, meant it had strong vested interests. Interests who took positions for their own benefit to the detriment of the airline.  For instance, its highly educated workforce, sometimes used their education and intelligence for selfish ends.

Right up to the end they would not let go of their perks and privileges which were costing the airline tremendous amounts of money and affecting its viability.

Several times, pilot strikes paralyzed the firm. Airline benefits were routinely abused, for instance the 10% staff tickets. There was also the overmanning. The workforce was stuffed with relatives of the influential and being a member of staff of Zambia Airways was a license to print money.

They lead a privileged life. It was not unusual for groceries to be bought in London or Johannesburg. It was also not unusual for you to buy your dollars from a member of staff of the airline. Zambia Airways also had a distinct disadvantage. Zambia has always had the most expensive fuel in Southern Africa and Zambia Airways had to use that fuel.
The other was the exchange control rules. Zambia Airways generated enough foreign exchange to pay its bills however it had to surrender all its foreign exchange and then apply for it just like any other company. This really crippled the airline.

Furthermore, the political interference led to some strange decisions as to who would run the airline. Both Presidents Chiluba and Kaunda decided who became MD with comical and at times disastrous results.

As we start another National Airline, I hope this cautionary tale is read by the powers that be.

So, let us begin. From the leftovers of the central African Airways Corporation came a new airline Zambia Airways. Its fleet consisted of 2 x BAC-1-11, 2 HS748s and 2 very old DC-3s. As usual with the division of assets during the Federation Zambia got the short end of the stick. Just like the Air Force which ended up in Rhodesia despite being bought using Zambian money, the airline’s main assets ended up in Rhodesia. Zambia got the left overs, and these formed the basis of the birth of Zambia Airways.

After the dissolution of Central African Airways, Zambia Airways was formed with the help of the Italian government. The Italians were to also help build the Zambian Air Force.
On January 1, 1968, Zambia Airways began operations. Its first board Chairman was dynamic Ndola based businessman Tom Mtine.  The first Managing Director was Francesco Casale, on loan under a management contract signed with Alitalia, the Italian flag carrier. The airline almost immediately began international services. Employing a Douglas DC-8- 43 leased from Alitalia, Lusaka to London flights via Nairobi and Rome began. The BAC 1-11 flew regional routes to Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, and Mauritius. While the DC-3s, the HS748s and Beavers flew local.

Zambia Airways grew quickly and the Italians rapidly constructed valuable infrastructure including housing in the Longacres area, a maintenance base, a headquarters in Longacres and cargo handling facility at Lusaka International Airport. The reason for the concentration in the Longacres area was the airline flew from City Airport until late 1968 when the new airport, Lusaka International Airport, become fully operational. The airline by the end of the year had over 800 employees.

In 1969 the DC-3s were disposed of and fully replaced by HS748s. With inadequate pilots available, the Zambia Air Force has pilots and engineers seconded to the Zambia Airways to fly the HS748s. The ZAF pilots are to later rise high in the ranks of Zambia Airways as well as on the technical side infact one of them even becomes Managing Director.
In 1971 Tom Mtine is replaced as Chairman by Simon C. Katilungu, while Roberto Tarantino is the new Managing Director. Zambia Airways adds routes to Gaborone and orders its first Boeing 707 which iss used as a freighter by the freight arm of Zambia Airways National Air Charters formed in 1974.

In 1975 Zambia Airways acquires a Boeing 707 that flies to London direct and the BAC-1-11s are sold. Alitalia bows out and a new management team from Ireland comes in. The Alitalia management contract is replaced by one signed with Aer Lingus Irish Airlines, the Irish national carrier. Zambia Airways quickly adds two more Boeing 707s to the fleet and now has three 707s including the freighter.

In 1977 Zambia Airways suffers its first serious accident. A Boeing 707 freighter declares an emergency and makes an emergency landing a Lusaka International Airport. The pilot damages the runway in his efforts to save the plane. Zambia Airways also has a pilot strike that paralyzes the airline. Senior managers have to come out of their offices and get back in the cockpit and some ZAF officers are drafted in to fly as well.

In 1979 a new deal to help improve technical and regional operations is signed with Ethiopian Airlines. Zambian pilots and technicians fly under some very primitive condition in Ethiopia and realise that flying in Zambia is a piece of cake compared to the conditions in Ethiopia.

In 1982 ZIMCO takes over operations and Zambia Airways is converted from a Statutory Corporation to an ordinary company.  Patrick Chisanga, director general of ZIMCO, on the direct orders of the then President Kenneth Kaunda becomes Chairman

Zambia Airways acquires its first Boeing 737 that year and it quickly becomes a firm favourite on regional flights. A HS748 is involved in an accident when it fails to take off and overruns the runway at Kasaba Bay. The plane is severely damaged but is eventually repaired and put back into service.

One of the Being 707s is retired and is relegated for use as a source of spares and for ground training and is parked behind the maintenance base. Zambia Airways is training its own pilots. The first go to Australia for the CPL and PPL training and then go to Lufthansa in Germany to train on 707s or to Aer Lingus for 737 training.

Zambia Airways now has 1,700 staff and now owns hotels in Lusaka and in Mauritius. Under Oliver Chama, the airline ambitiously decides to acquire a wide-bodied aircraft. In a powerful show of economic muscle Zambian banks like ZANACO, Barclays, Stanchart and Zambia State Insurance provide the finance for the aircraft with crucial financing also coming from Chemical Bank and the Export Import Bank of the USA. Oliver Chama is unable to savour his triumph as the man with the vision to acquire the wide-bodied aircraft as he is replaced by Lawrence Bwalya

The giant DC-10-30 is the second largest passenger plane in existence at the time and it allows Zambia Airways to fly to Paris as well as London. Zambia Airways is now flying to Bombay as well as to Mauritius.

That same year an enraged Director of Civil Aviation closes the airport for an hour causing flights to divert to Harare and Lilongwe. He is upset because Zambia Airways cannot hold a flight for him when he arrives 5 minutes late to board the plane.

Zambia Airways now has 1 DC-10-30, 3 Boeing 707s, 1 Boeing 737, and 2 HS 748s. Zambia Airways now has revenues of $40 million and is breaking even with a small operating loss of $150,000 although financing costs blow the loss to nearly $5 million.

Drastic action is taken with Captain Godfrey Mulundika, a former ZAF Pilot, put in charge and a comprehensive review by Lufthansa undertaken. Meanwhile a popular flight to Swaziland is inaugurated. Zambians fly to Swaziland using their US$300 holiday allowance allocation of foreign exchange and come back with goods for sale.

Zambia Airways begins to modernize its fleet and acquires to ATR 42-300s and disposes of the HS748s, it also puts up for sale its ageing Boeing 707s. Zambia Airways begins a flight to New York via Monrovia. In an embarrassing fiasco, the inaugural flight arrives in New York with all the VIPs and visitors including Transport Minister General Kingsley Chinkuli arrive without visas. Deft diplomatic moves by the Zambian mission in New York salvages a truly appalling situation.

Zambia Airways acquires a DC-8-71, the plane actually belongs to the government, but in order to keep it active and for easy maintenance, it is added to the fleet and places an order for an MD-11 as well as for a Boeing 757 freighter.

Zambia Airways is the first airline in the world to operate the 757 freighter. With 2,150 employees there is concern that the airline is overmanned with only 300,000 passengers and a fleet of 2 ATR42-320s, 2 Boeing 737s, 1 Boeing 757 freighter, 1 DC-8-61 and 1 DC-10-30. The plane to crew ratio is over 300, three times the ideal.

A crisis develops in 1991. Zambia Airways is affected by the Gulf War as the cost of fuel soars and Zambia Airways now begins getting fuel outside Zambia where it is cheaper. Meanwhile, the escalating civil war in Liberia means the New York flight instead uses Freetown as its base for the hop across the Atlantic on the flight to New York.

As losses pile up, Godfrey Mulundika is sacked, he is replaced by Luke Mbewe a turnaround specialist with a reputation for reviving moribund companies. He does not endear himself to the pilots when he tells them outside the intricacies of the cockpit, flying is no different to driving a bus. He cancels the MD-11 which was even painted in Zambian colours and nearly complete. The cancellation costs a very painful $2 million in penalties.

Zambia Airways not only flies locally but it flies scheduled international flights from Lusaka to Bombay, Dar es Salaam, Entebbe, Frankfurt, Gaborone, Harare, Johannesburg, Lilongwe, London, Lubumbashi Nairobi, and Rome.

True to his reputation, Luke Mbewe slashes 400 jobs and is chipping away at the losses. New York is making losses and the route is chopped. However, he is battling a very strong union and a new government is in place. His reputed family ties to the former President Kenneth Kaunda do not help. He is sacked and replaced by Peter Kaoma who continues to implement his restructuring program.

Unfortunately, the sacked employees are rehired due to political pressure and the airline headcount climbs and its financial status is still bad. By 1994 Peter Kaoma is sacked and George Lewis steps in. By now the situation is dire, Creditors are seizing assets and aircraft must be shuttled around to avoid attachment by banks.

George Lewis puts together a comprehensive resuscitation plan that involves asset sales, workforce cuts, closing of offices and rationalization of routes. He begins laying off employees. However, he is taken by surprise after being assured of the survival plan being put in place, on December 3, 1994, the airline is closed. Vice President General Miyanda announces the placing of Zambia Airways in liquidation.

Passengers are stranded all over the world. Staff are trapped in various offices around the world. The offices are surrounded and locked by armed police. 28 years of operation is over. 28 days before it was due to clock 28 years of operations Zambia Airways shuts its doors.

Its assets are sold off by the liquidators Price Waterhouse. The liquidator Jack Ward, becomes a very well-known person as the various controversies in the liquidation play out on the front pages of the newspapers. Sonny Mulenga the Minister represents the employees in their negotiations with the liquidator.

In a humane gesture Jack Ward, decides to sell the housing stock to the employees. Very soon SP Mulenga and the employees are embroiled in dispute as Jack Ward threatens to sell off the houses because the payments as agreed are not flowing in. It turns out well, S P Mulenga are behind on the payments while the employees in certain cases have even paid in full.

The Zambia Airways maintenance base is invaded by brokers from all over the world as they buy bits and pieces of a 28-year stockpile of spares and equipment. Its Christmas time for anyone who flies BAC-1-11, DC-8, Boeing 707, Boeing 737, Boeing 757, HS 748 and ATR-42. It’s an Aladdin’s cave for spares and sophisticated testing equipment and aircraft metal work shop. Lathes, drills, CNC machines. It all goes. Zambia Airways employees act as consultants to the vultures.

Very soon aircraft engineers, pilots, air hostesses, stewards, cargo handling staff, logistics experts languish away jobless. The lucky ones get jobs abroad. An expensive investment in manpower goes to waste. One Zambia Airways aircraft engineer pops up on BBC, he is now a taxi driver. A man must do what he must do to survive.

Meanwhile, Zambia becomes an aviation backwater. The local airports fall silent some of them for good and become derelict. Kasaba Bay, Zambezi fall into ruin. Zambians now have to go to Harare or fly to South Africa to fly out of the country.

In 1995 the DC-10-30, Nkwazi, is sold to Monarch Air, a UK airline. It is the last aircraft to be disposed of, it is a fitting epitaph.

N.B. this story is culled from lots of sources, some copied direct from some blogs and web pages. It is the tale of an airline.

By Prof Michelo Hansungule

Nelson Chamisa has a formidable case against his opponent President Emmerson Mnangagwa, presumed winner of last week’s presidential elections. Politics aside, Chamisa’s election petition confirms his remarks earlier in which he declared that he had won the 2018 elections.

Chamisa’s petition chronicles a litany of allegations of irregularities and blatant violations of the Constitution and the electoral Act by ZANU PF.

There are at least three killer punches in the petition which really would leave Mnangagwa scampering for cover.

First is the accusation in paragraph 4.5.14 against ZEC Chairperson Judge Priscilla Chigumba that after she was appointed Chairperson by President Mnangagwa on 1st February 2018, she celebrated the appointment on February 3 by accepting President Mnangagwa’s now typical insignia the scarf of the Zimbabwe flag which was Mnangagwa’s.

Wearing this scarf, Judge Chigumba in breach of regulations prohibiting ZEC staff wearing materials associated with one of the candidate’s campaign material.

Second is allegation that Chamisa’s election agents were not called to sign the presidential results before they were announced as required by law.

Viewers who watched the ZEC announcements of the presidential results will recall the drama that took place shortly before the ZEC returned to the podium to announce the last outstanding results, Chamisa’s election agent also MDC Chairman took to the floor to announce that he had not signed the results.

In the petition, Chamisa avers that this was after the ZEC CEO promised to call the agent so that he can verify and sign the results before they were announced yet Judge Chigumba and her colleagues proceeded to announce the results ignoring the statutorily mandatory signatures only to ask for them after the announcements.

Third is the unbelievable allegation in paragraph 6.5.3 that even based on their own figures, the results they announced do not match.

He alleged ‘…..The evidence attached hereto and marked ‘1 Series’ shows that more people than were registered voted. ………..Further, there are polling stations where ZEC there was a plus 90% turnout. This is unimaginable. In those areas where there was a plus 90% turnout, first respondent (Mnangagwa) was given a total of 352 897 votes……….’. He attached ZEC’s own analysis sheet.

The petition makes several other allegations including the biased role of the security forces which he accused of promoting the interests of only the ruling party. In particular, he mentions the deplorable event of Wednesday 1st August when the military opened live fire in Harare in response to unarmed MDC demonstrators who were calling for release of the results.

It is common knowledge that since independence ZANU PF has been using the army and other security forces to maintain their grip on power. This is what Chamisa is talking about when he complains about the role of the security forces during the elections. Of course it was good for the army to step in as they did and remove Mugabe from power because without that act, Mugabe would still be in power. No one, not even Mnangagwa would have removed Mugabe from power had the army not done what it did.

Everyone agrees that it was too much Mugabe had to go.  But removing Mugabe from decades in power is one thing and trying to illegally keep power under the facade of Mnangagwa or is it Chiwenga is quite another. There was absolutely no basis for the army to have used live ammunition on civilians on 1st August.

Besides the security forces, Chamisa makes several allegations against the conduct of state media which is another well-known story of primitive bias. Just like in Zambia, state media in Zimbabwe have no clue the difference between ‘state media’ and ‘government media’. During elections, so-called ‘state media’ behaves like it is ‘government media’ openly biased in favour of government which is illegal.

Distribution of seed and other farming requests especially to people in rural areas is another serious allegation raised in the petition. He argues that distribution of farming inputs to people in rural areas under the facade of empowering rural people unduly advantaged the first respondent. Anyone with basic knowledge of rural areas in Africa and particularly with massive poverty levels in these areas should easy understand the reason behind sudden ‘love liaisons’ between governments and people during elections. Coupled with strong relationships between chiefs and governments in these areas, and the influence chiefs exert on people in their areas, the story is complete.

Of course we are still to hear from Mnangagwa and ZEC their responses. The issue, however, is that based on previous election petition judgments, Chamisa no doubt has an edge over Mnangagwa.

In previous election petitions, judges in several jurisdictions have dismissed petitions challenging results of elections on the ground that while there were irregularities and even illegalities, overall the elections were substantially free and fair. What this means is that courts mean is that no election is free of irregularities and that courts are not there to nullify every election based on proof of any irregularity.

But this is different in the case of the Chamisa-Mnangagwa election. Mnangagwa’s win was only with the slightest of margins. In previous case law, courts have if the difference between the loser and the winner is very large, they will be reluctant to invalidate the election merely upon proof of an irregularity. This is also in line with the decision of the George Bush versus Al Gower case in which the court seems to have suggested that election petitions in their nature are political.

But again, this case is different. It is not even the difference between Mnangagwa and Chamisa which is at issue but the .3% margin of victory Mnangagwa allegedly got over the 50% constitutional threshold to avoid a run-off which is the issue.

Based on a litany of African cases such as from Shehu Shagary case in Nigeria, the 2001 Col. Dr. Besigye Case in Uganda through to the first Raila Odinga versus Uhuru Kenyatta case, the principle has been the same, namely, that courts can interfere with the electoral body’s declaration in circumstances where there is proof or material irregularity which if it had not occurred, the result would be different.

Imagine if Chamisa manages to prove ay of the allegations he has made, namely, that it did occur and that it was material to the outcome which ZEC announced, obviously it could lead to a different result.

But of course there are other factors key among which is the judiciary and particularly how independent it is? We are victims of this in Zambia. The other is the elephant in the room i.e. the military.

This makes the elections in Zimbabwe not just a simple case of elections. But there is no doubt that this is a test case in Zimbabwe and looking at the issues the petition raises, a test case for the way in which elections should be conducted in Africa as a whole.