By Edward Chisanga

Introduction

Economically, Zambia is at crossroads. On the one hand, there’s growing poverty and inequalities which is fanning anger, political and social flames. On the other, there’s growing finger-pointing. PF, its supporters, and sympathizers are basically inflaming the public that prices of essential commodities like fuel and food have risen from their point when PF leadership left office. Of course, prices have risen, in many instances beyond affordability of a common man and woman who don’t have as much purchasing power as the elite and those who simply stole.

But, what no one, even the ruling government is not vigorously explaining is the cause. I’m not an Economist by academic fittings. But, I understand economics and statistics enough to know who caused the current economic meltdown in our country. And, if I were of HH camp, it’s here I would vigorously and repeatedly make my point. Much as we must vigorously hold our elected officials including the President accountable as they run our economy, it must be based on responsibility. We must distinguish between symptom and cause. It’s unfair to entirely place accountability on symptoms and particularly those trying to correct them.

Every symptom traces a cause. In the last ten years, long before HH government arrived, the Zambian economy has been witnessing one of the most dramatic downturns, such that putting the entire blame on Covid19 is to be irresponsible. If we separate cause from symptom, we will see that in the last ten years, Zambia’s economic turmoil can easily be traced back to PF rule. President Hichilema, the person who is being blamed for these symptoms is a wrong one. Blame the right person.

What the HH government did not do but which was done by President Lungu

Using statistics, HH and his team must vigorously and repeatedly explain to the Zambian people the part that they did not do, or the cause of the problem in parallel with the problems they’re responsible for. The economic problem caused by President Lungu and his team which is now translating into economic hardships in households must be explained to the public. President HH and his government did not cause this. They inherited it. What Zambians forgot to see was that while they and the PF President were dancing Dununa reverse, Dununa Reverse was in fact reversing the Zambian Economy into pauperism experienced today, from what the Mwanawasa and Banda Presidency left.

Statistics show that this downturn of the economy was caused not by HH.

Figure 1 below shows annual average growth rate per GDP capita over the last ten years. It clearly shows that HH leadership is not responsible for causing Zambia’s economic troubles. I use the economic indicator of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita to explain the foregoing story due to its direct impact on the purchasing power of individual households. Economic experts tell us that when GDP per capita is rising, it denotes good purchasing power and living standards while the fall points to deteriorating purchasing power and living standards. This statistic you see below shows the trend in deteriorating living standards of Zambians. The Real GDP growth follows similar deteriorating pattern.

According to global economic governance, it’s the government that caused the problem that must be held accountable. We must begin by bringing to the Independence Stadium, the President that caused the economic mortification so he could explain to the Zambian people. We must ask him to explain if we celebrated political independence under his rule only to become poorer after ten years. It’s he and his team that are responsible for these economic hardships we see today.

Leadership accountability must begin with the cause of the problem, not the one trying to fix it. Accountability to the one trying to fix it should be based on the economic hiccups caused by him. That’s what we should always do as responsible citizens. It’s wrong for us to focus on blaming the innocent while ignoring the culprit. That’s where we always go wrong. Someone creates a national problem like hunger due to mismanagement of the economy. We ignore and point a finger at the new leader trying to correct things. That’s wrong.

Now, let us see what statistics tell us. Figure 1 below shows that Zambia’s GDP per capita has been shrinking in the last ten years, down from about 6% in 2010 to minus 6% in 2020 during the PF rule. This is a scandal, in particular by a government that thrived on public impression that the economy was doing well, Look at infrastructure, manifested in roads, clinics, football stadiums, public offices and other physical buildings erected by President Lungu, they used to brag about.

But expenditure on roads and other unproductive structures were at the expense of the economy. These so-called nice roads are not even used by the common man or woman but the elite that often show no respect for poor pedestrians. The roads have become so dangerous to common people that they even prefer potholed roads. Roads with potholes at least restrain reckless drivers from over speeding, thereby save lives.

Can critics explain how an economy not growing for ten years can feed its people today?

If the Zambian economy, measured by GDP per capita growth was declining in the last ten years, juxtaposed by growing debt, how is it possible for it to hold Zambians on its shoulders? How is it possible for it to feed its people? How can we responsibly expect a new government of one year to remove poverty created over the last ten years?

The poverty of today is something inherited by the new government from economic mismanagement of previous leadership. You economists know too well that a degenerating economy of the PF magnitude is not a strong foundation to generate jobs, provide affordable food and fuel prices. Jobs, affordable food and fuel prices are an outcome of a growing economy. But ours is not growing. It is declining.

Most Zambian consumers are not spending as much as they can because they cannot afford when the GDP per capita is falling. GDP per capita stimulates spending when it is growing. The living standards of Zambians will only improve if they continue to buy. This economy is not growing. In fact, it has been declining. Drivers of an improved standard of living include exporting more dynamic products, not simply raw copper.

Productivity and exports of dynamic products key

We will not get anywhere if we continue to rely on exports of raw copper. A nation cannot plan based on copper exports alone. How can we simply wait for the world prices of copper to rise in order for us to plan our economic future? When we won political independence in 1964, we promised citizens that we will diversify and add value to the country’s exports. Sixty years have passed, and our total exports are represented by almost 90% of primary commodities shown in Figure 2 below at the expense of manufactured goods. We have a private sector that speaks more than it works. In its current form, I don’t see how it can compete globally and even regionally.

Go to South Africa and visit their shopping malls and come back to Zambia and tell us if you found any Zambian export product sitting on their shelves. Yes, you have the so-called Trade King in Zambia. But the kingdom is not seen in South Africa because of shallow products.

Today, we are swamped by slogans of value addition and that’s important. But one hopes that this time around, implementation will take place. It better be because, according to a statement I read in the Lusaka Times, “Ministry of Labour and Social Security Acting Permanent Secretary, Zechariah Luhanga, said labour productivity in Zambia contracted by 21 per cent between 2019 and 2020.” International Labour Organization tells us, “Labor productivity is an important economic indicator that is closely linked to economic growth, competitiveness, and living standards within an economy.”

I want to know. When the Zambian economy, purchasing power and productivity are ceasing to develop, when they are declining, as is the situation today, can we expect the country to feed us three meals a day? Must prices of fuel, mealie-meal and other essential commodities continue to be at the same level as they were during the PF rule of no economics? PF leaders continue to boast that its economics served interests of Zambians when in fact this was based on subsidization. They contend that UPND is making lives of Zambians miserable. That’s not true. PF created all this messy we are in.

Concluding

I have said it before, but no one listens. We are going everywhere. We are rubbing shoulders with everyone. But, we have not yet done so with countries where value addition is taking place in Africa and in Asia. Value addition is taking place in Morocco, Mauritius and Viet Nam. Yet, Zambia has no robust partnership with them.
Finally, can those who are fantasizing coming back to power explain to Zambians, how, after destroying the economy, they plan not to hurt it more. Is there moral justification that leaders who destroy the economy and bring economic misery to their people should be rewarded by bringing them back to rule us again?

By Isaac Mwanza

Since 1964, Zambia has been a constitutional democracy, which is alleged to be governed by the rule of law. However, adherence to the Constitution and enforcement of constitutional provisions is quite questionable and demonstrably weaker in Zambia than in other similarly described countries such as Kenya and South Africa.

In 2016, Zambians made extensive changes to the Constitution of Zambia Act, 1991. These changes led to the establishment of 18 independent Commissions and other offices under Part 18 of the Constitution.

This article focuses on why Zambia has independent commissions and offices established by the Constitution, and what their roles should be in a democracy.

Among the 18 independent Commissions, 7 are Service Commissions and 3 are investigative Commissions, which in in our daily life we loosely refer to as law enforcement agencies.

The remaining 8 Commissions cover elections, human rights, gender, emoluments in the public service, land, audit, complaints against police actions and complaints against judges of our superior courts in their individual capacities on matters of their conduct.

The Office of the Public Protector and Auditor-General are other independent offices created by the 2016 constitutional amendments.

But there are also other statutory commissions established in Zambia by ordinary law. Such commissions include the Zambia Law Development Commission (ZLDC) and the Citizens Economic Empowerment Commission (CEEC).

The others are Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and National Food and Nutrition Commission (NFNC).

The repealed provisions of Article 109 clauses (2) and (3) of the 1991 Constitution and later Article 123 of the 1996 Constitution provided a foundation upon which the National Assembly established those statutory commissions. Those provisions no longer exist in the current Constitution.

Although Commissions are a drain on limited public resources, President Hakainde Hichilema’s administration has advanced its ambition to also establish the Minerals Regulation Commission (MRC).

Our Part 18 Institutions are called independent commissions and offices. They were created with the intention of taking them outside the control of the political establishment and the Executive branch of government.

Article 216 of our Constitution is what gives these bodies independence to ensure their impartiality and fairness in the discharge of their functions.

They are therefore a group supposedly free from political control so they can work towards a specific goal for the country or state. They are not to be influenced or dictated by politicians, senior bureaucrats or any other person or institution, including the President and his ministers.

We can call these Independent Commissions and offices as the fourth arm of the State considering their autonomous nature.

In Kenya, these Commissions and offices are referred to as Chapter 15 Institutions while South Africa calls them Chapter 9 institutions. In these countries, independent bodies have brought about fundamental changes in the values and practices of state officials and the nature and objectives of the state.

When it becomes necessary to protect their constitutional mandate or advance their interests, these institutions do sue other institutions and members of the executive or judicial arm of government.

In the face of the fact that Zambia has both Commissions created by the Constitution while others are established by statute, a thin or blurred line exist between these two types of Commissions.

It is understandably not easy for laypersons and lawyers (including some of our jurists) to distinguish and appreciate the importance of these independent bodies from statutory commissions.

One notable difference between constitutionally-established commissions from statutory ones is the modus operandi of their functioning. These Independent commissions are established based on the need to remove political, tribal, regional or partisan control over these institutions.

This was to mark a break from a historical past of their excesses, secrecies, mysteries and partiality in the discharge of functions since independence. And in the exercise of their everyday functions, independent bodies are bound by constitutional principles and values such as constitutionalism, good governance, non-discrimination, accountability, transparency, among others.

However, just like the Judiciary, factors that adversely affect the independence of these Commissions include how their members are appointed or removed from office. Appointments to independent Commissions are engraved in Articles 240 and 173(1) of the Constitution as read together with Section 4 of the Service Commissions Act.

We as citizens remember – even if leaders from our three organs of Government do not – that the Constitution itself require the appointment of members to these commissions to be done on the basis of merit, equal and adequate opportunities. In addition, the law also requires qualification, competence, suitability, relevant experience and good behaviour as a prerequisite for appointments.

Those who are being appointed as commissioners ought to have declared their assets and liabilities, which is not happening in blatant violation of our Constitution.

It is true to state that when persons are being considered for appointment using the ancient practice shrouded in secrecy and mystery, political stooges get to be appointed while independent minds are left out.

The question on removal of members of independent commissions has also sadly been left to subsidiary legislation.

Once appointed, a commissioner can be removed by a process that again gives the President and other bodies a major role – threatening the Commission’s independence. Members of independent institutions are dismissed at the instance of a sitting President or Minister.

Commissions such as the Judicial Complaints Commission do submit to the wishes and demands of a powerful executive President.

It is now a persistent trend in Zambia that members of independent bodies get unconstitutionally removed and discriminately discharged out of a political vendetta or on very flimsy reasons.

It should however be clear at this point that together with a strengthened judiciary, independent Commissions and offices should have represented a significant restructuring of Zambia’s key State institutions that were once weak.

Sadly, independent Commissions and offices have continued to operate in a way which is similar to how they did during the one-party era. The environment under which these bodies operate remain the same.

All bodies in Zambia, regardless of whether they are independent or statutory, have been forced to continue serving and acting on behalf of and under control of the politicians who may be in power at a particular time.

The superiority of independent bodies in Kenya and South Africa over the ones in Zambia has much to do with the constitutional roles that those bodies perform and the security of tenure which their members enjoy in those countries.

Under Article 181 of the Constitution of South Africa, Chapter 9 Institutions have a clear mandate of protecting and strengthening South Africa’s democracy.

In Kenya, independent commissions and offices are constitutionally designed to protect the people’s sovereign power, ascertaining that all state organs observe democratic values and principles.

In those countries, independent bodies are protected in different ways by the Constitution. The courts in Kenya and South Africa boldly enforce independence of these commissions and offices even when it may be attractive and rewarding to make decisions that please the executive arm of government.

It is not easy in Kenya to dismiss members of independent bodies in those countries because their constitutions have demanded a procedural dismissal process.

On the other hand, the salaries of members of these independent commissions and offices in Kenya are at the same scale as those of judges of the superior courts and are a charge on the consolidated fund. This means that they are not voted on annually or discussed in Parliament.

How then can we make our independent commissions responsive in Zambia?

The courts ought to play a vital role in ensuring that independent commissions and offices are made and operate subject to the Constitution first before any other law as required by Article 216 of the Zambian Constitution.

Our courts have a big role to protect constitutional principles and values, including Article 173 values, which binds national, provincial and local government levels as well as all State organs and State institutions.

Secondly, there must be true political will to ensure each independent commission becomes a self-accounting institution which deals directly with the Ministry of Finance.

There should be adequate funding for these commissions to enable them effectively perform their functions.

Thirdly, non-state actors and the Commissions themselves must rise to the occasion to ensure that they are legally protected as independent bodies which are fully discharging their constitutional functions.

The task thus remains with persons and institutions to do their part.

In this decade, civil society groupings in Zambia can learn from their counterparts in Kenya and South Africa and step into the ring.

NGOs ought to abandon their constant roles of being voices for never-ending processes of amending the Constitution. They must instead seize the opportunity provided by the Constitution itself to present their grievances to competent courts of law.

We must never tire out in demanding for institutional reforms, adherence and respect for our Constitution, and its principles and values.

[For any feedback and contributions, write to [email protected]]

Published by the Daily Nation, May, 2023