AS the National Constitutional Conference (NCC) continues its sittings in Lusaka, one area that may be worth exploring is the enactment of a law that could help Zambia reap maximum benefits from its citizens in the Diaspora.
This is the path that many countries in the developing world are pursuing with resounding success.
In this regard, the question about whether it is appropriate to enact a law that allows Zambians living in the Diaspora hold dual citizenship deserves to be looked at with utmost sobriety and objectivity.
India is one such country that has proved that citizens living abroad can no longer be looked at with suspicion but rather as an asset, central to development initiatives.
Elsewhere, Kenya has put in place the Diaspora Act while Ghana has also made significant economic strides since it allowed dual citizenship three years ago.
India
Zambia’s World Bank country representative, Kapil Kapoor told Frank Mutubila on a recent Zambian Diaspora edition of Radio Phoenix’s Let the People Talk, that Indians living in the Diaspora were making a significant contribution to India’s economy.
‘‘It started from a realisation that the Diaspora are able to convey large sums of money which can be used for development. If one adds up the total amount of money that the Diaspora (from all parts of the world) remitted in 2007, it amounted to about US$250 billion.
‘‘That’s twice the amount of all the money that donors provide developing countries? There’s a lot of attention that is focused on cooperating partners and donors. The Diaspora remits more than twice the amount,” Dr Kapoor said.
He cited the Indian government which realised more than 20 years ago that the synergy with the Diaspora could be harnessed to greater effect than the case had previously been.
The result is that Indians in the Diaspora now send back between $25 billion and $30 billion annually through official channels although the amount is believed to be even much larger.
It was upon this realisation that the Indian government thought of putting into place programmes that could make transmission of such money more efficient through the banking system, while at the same time reducing the cost of doing so.
Currently, there is a programme known as the Real Time Transfer System which ensures that when money is deposited from any part of the world, it is immediately credited into a person’s account in India.
In the past, Indians who became citizens of other countries could not own land in India but this is now changing, helped by the concept of dual citizenship.
Dr Kapoor explained that many highly qualified Indian engineers, who had left the country many years ago to invest in the Silicon Valley, had now provided huge benefit to the world’s second fastest growing economy.
‘‘It’s precisely these people who are responsible for the entire outsourcing industry that developed in India about 10 years ago. These investors who went and established themselves in the Silicon Valley have now invested large amounts of money in businesses which are software and outsourcing related in India,” Dr Kapoor explained.
On how secure such investment was, Dr Kapoor said this had to be premised on political will and that assured all investors, regardless of their nationality, that their investments were safe.
This, though, needs to emanate from a mental mind shift that understands that people in the Diaspora belong, at heart, to their countries of origin.
Also appearing on the same programme as Dr Kapoor was Chisanga Puta-Chekwe, a lawyer who has been living in Canada for over 20 years.
‘‘Our instinct should be to look more to ourselves for solutions than from foreigners. We certainly should put in place a plan to wean ourselves off international aid and increase our ability to attract foreign direct investment as well as domestic investment,” Mr Puta-Chekwe said.
Mr Puta-Chekwe added that although he had been away from Zambia for so long, the connection was always deeper to one’s land of their birth and it was, thus, frustrating to see Zambia remain underdeveloped, 44 years after political independence.
‘‘It always hurts and the hurt never goes away. The sooner we open up our country, the sooner we become more respectful of the rights enshrined in our Constitution and the sooner we have that mindset that Dr Kapoor has been talking about, the better for all of us,” he said.
When Mr Puta-Chekwe left Zambia many years ago, he first settled in England from where he applied to be an independent immigrant in Canada.
It was not easy passing the stringent test of obtaining a residence permit in Canada.
‘‘There were difficulties settling down, but the system, broadly, was fair and one certainly felt that one’s professionalism was valued. I’m embarrassed to say I’ve had more recognition from Canada than from my own country,” he said.
Ghana
While some schools of thought may contend that Africans in the Diaspora are not on the same plane as India in as far as remitting significant amounts of money back home, Ghana is a shining example near home.
Mr Puta-Chekwe has been a keen follower of the Ghana experience, saying the West African state has benefited massively from its citizens based in the Diaspora since introducing dual nationality in 2003.
Around 2006, Ghana received about $6 billion in remittances from the Diaspora in sharp contrast to $400 million in 2002, a year before dual citizenship was espoused and at the end of last year, the figure was expected to soar to $8 billion.
‘‘Clearly, there’s a correlation between the ability of nationals abroad to remit money and their ability to acquire the citizenship of the country where they choose to practice their profession,” reasoned Mr Puta-Chekwe.
He explained that if one was a citizen of the country in which they practised their profession, they got access to better paying jobs than if they were not.
‘‘The sending country, in this case Zambia, actually benefits directly by allowing its nationals to become citizens of the countries where they do go because that increases the remittances from that country back to Zambia.”
Security risk
Despite the apparent enormous advantages to be derived from the concept of dual nationality, it has oftentimes been argued that it could be risky to trust a person whose allegiance is to two countries.
Dr Kapoor said that was the reason often cited by policy makers and was, for many years, used to deny people dual citizenship in India.
The feeling, he said, was that one could only pledge allegiance to one nation, but countries like the US and others had proven that that was merely a misconception.
‘‘If your roots are in India or in some other part of the world, part of you belongs there, and to say that you can only have allegiance to the country where you choose to practice your profession was probably misguided.
‘‘This is what led developed nations to allow multiple citizenship. So I would just say to policy makers to look at the experience of countries that have actually allowed dual citizenship and to ask the question: Has this, in any way, undermined their loyalty to the countries of their origin?”
Diaspora views
Zambia has a countless number of citizens living and doing fine overseas, and some of these did have chance to participate in the Let the People Talk programme either by phone or electronic mail.
The first was Chasaya Sichilima, chairperson of the Zambia-Canadian Association who has lived out of Zambia for 20 years, beginning with 13 years in England and the other seven in Canada.
Calling from London, Ontario, Mr Sichilima said Canada had made vast developments in many fields because it had harnessed the skills of people from different parts of the world.
On the issue of dual nationality, Mr Sichilima said: “It should have been done like yesterday. That’s how late we are. We have, as a country, lost out on our own people who have gone to apply their skills elsewhere.”
He explained that one of the chief reasons people acquired citizenship when they migrated was that it became easier for them to stay in those countries and have access to loans and certain jobs which they would not if they were merely residents.
Mr Sichilima urged the Zambian Government to utilise its citizens in the Diaspora as they had the capacity to contribute a lot more than the FDI coming into the country.
He said they did not necessarily need to be back in Zambia physically as they could contribute while being away.
‘‘We want a shift where the president and the Government begin to recognise and make efforts to ensure that the Diaspora becomes a prominent force.
‘‘We actually should be given the incentive to contribute even a lot more than foreign investors because our hearts are in Zambia, our minds are in Zambia,” he said.
A lot of Zambians, he said, were willing to help but needed a platform that could make them get even more rebates than those offered to foreign investors.
He cited Kenya as one country that had put in place a Diaspora Act which made it a lot easier for people to invest or acquire land and, as a result, the country was getting a lot more money from its nationals abroad than what came in from foreign investors.
Mr Sichilima advised the Government to consider opening Diaspora desks in all foreign missions to help Zambians access investment information without having to take a flight back home.
And Musaba Chailunga, from Toronto, in Canada said the Government should make use of the Diaspora and encourage them to invest in Zambia.
Mr Chailunga, who is the secretary of the Zambia-Canadian Association, and chairperson of the dual citizenship sub-committee, said the Government should re-think its stance on dual nationality as it was currently losing out.
‘‘The Government has to encourage people to send back money for them to be doing their own projects. There are a lot of Zambians who hold foreign citizenship.
‘‘One of the major motivators is to allow dual citizenship, because then they would know that their country thinks of them as they think of it,” he said.
Mr Chailunga said his sub-committee had already sent a petition to the NCC to consider recommending that the new Constitution allows for dual nationality.
Another Zambian who has been in Toronto for 10 years, Kaela Mulenga said the Government should recognise that it had a pool of human capital in the Diaspora, which could be used to make Zambia a better country.
From Oklahoma University in the United States, Heminigild Mpundu urged Zambian missions to take an active role in communicating not only with foreign investors but also Zambians.
He said it was unacceptable for Zambia to rank together with countries that had been at war for many years and yet it had a lot of its citizens doing well in the Diaspora.
Sharing the same view was Patrick Mumba, an architect and real estate manager from Christianfeld, Denmark. Mr Mumba, who has lived in Denmark for 20 years, went further to say Zambians in the Diaspora wanted to continue being a part of the country and should, therefore, be helped to participate in governance by retaining the right to vote even after migrating.
He called on the Government to come up with incentives that could attract investment from Zambians abroad.
‘‘Most of us people who work in the Diaspora earn a pension and these pensions are invested in funds here. I could imagine if the Government provided some incentives for us to save some of our pensions in things back at home.
‘‘We are talking about a whole lot of money, and that could go a long way in boosting our economic climate. If it can be done in Kenya, it can be done in Zambia, if it can be done in Ghana, it can be done in Zambia,” Mr Mumba said.
He said being part of the global village, Zambia could not afford to remain behind and Zambia should consider dual nationality as a priority.
And Charles Ng’andwe from Manchester in England, said with the world’s biggest economy in recession, Zambia had to pool all the resources it could, and the Diaspora was one such source.
He said the cost of doing business in Zambia was prohibitive, which was why it was difficult to bring in equipment, as duty was usually too high.
‘‘Even if you want to invest, where do you start from? Investment, in our understanding, has to come from Europe and the United States, and yet the Zambian economy can only be improved by we Zambians,” said Charles who has been in England for 13 years.
Others on the programme, co-presented and coordinated by Mr Sichilima were Simon Sakala, who, with his wife, has run a school teaching English in Tokyo, Japan for over 11 years, and Bright Chinganya, an accountant in Melbourne, Australia.
Enock Munachilala (Russia), Norman Chipakupaku (Scotland) Jones Mpakateni (Pakistan) Jacob Sakala, (Sheffield, England), Joseph Trigo (Australia) and Michael Chilando (Michigan, United States) emailed and were unanimous in their call for dual citizenship and being a chance to bring their skills and money back to Zambia.
World Bank’s role
The World Bank has realised that Africa has large numbers of people in the Diaspora who can provide not only financial but also human capital.
So it is engaging African governments to discuss how they can make the local environment more attractive for the Diaspora to contribute.
On whether the World Bank had already engaged the Zambian Government on the same issue, Dr Kapoor said the initiative had to come from Zambia.
‘‘We are here to provide examples from all over the world. If this is something the Zambian Government would like to engage us in, as the governments of Kenya and Ghana have done, we are happy to engage.
‘‘The speed at which this is done is dependent on the Zambian Government, but we are there to help.”
[Times of Zambia]
