By Fred M’membe

Yesterday, at a hastily arranged investiture ceremony, the President of Zambia conferred the Order of the Eagle of Zambia First Division – one of the country’s highest honors – on three advisory board members of Brenthurst Foundation, a mining lobby group established by the Oppenheimer family to secure a low mining tax regime in Africa.

We say hastily arranged because the official gazette notice for the conferment of these presidential honours was only published in the Government Gazette on 13 July 2022 – literally hours before the awards were conferred the following day!

The members of the Brenthurst Foundation who were given State honours are Mr Olusegun Obasanjo, the former president of Nigeria; Mrs Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, the former president of Liberia; and Mr Ernest Bai Koroma, the former president of Sierra Leone. The President claimed that he was honouring the three Brenthurst Foundation members for promoting democracy and improving the living standards in their countries and other places such as Zambia. This is false.

The real reason the three former presidents are being honoured is that they are all board members of the Brenthurst Foundation, the Johannesburg-based organisation led by Mr Greg Mills that supported the campaigns of the current President when he was in opposition. (Mr Mills is the author of the book that the President went to launch in Johannesburg in January this year using state resources). Anyone who doubts this information simply has to check the details on the website of the Brebthurst Foundation shown below.

https://www.thebrenthurstfoundation.org/about/team-advisors/

There is one thread that runs through the three recipients: they are all influencers, the ‘big boys’ and ‘big girls’, as our people would say, used by the Brenthurst Foundation to make the necessary government deals for the benefit of their backers, including the Oppenheimers.

Our people are increasingly beginning to know the Brenthurst Foundation and to rightly despise the huge sway that Mr Mills and his organisation appear to have on the President. Zambians hate foreign control, especially of their leaders. Zambians know that the Brenthurst Foundation is this week set to have its advisory meeting in Lusaka, possibly to be hosted by the President of Zambia, that brings together all their puppets in one place. To diffuse this growing anger against the foreign forces that appear to be controlling the President, these awards were hastily organised and awarded to coincide with the AU Heads of State meeting.

The truth is that these people are being awarded as part of the propaganda to launder the Brenthurst Foundation and their sponsors as legitimate allies of Africa. The puppet masters are going for resource rich African countries and making deals with their puppets aimed at securing precious minerals through questionable tax holidays. They are after the diamonds in Sierra Leone, the gold in Liberia, the oil in Nigeria, the copper and cobalt in Zambia, and other rich minerals in several Africans countries such as Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Using the Brenthurst Foundation, and as part of an integrated takeover of Africa, they are propagating on the continent a very vicious right-wing politics that is out to launder racist white capital and its Western backers. The fact that we Africans are not rising to protest their ongoing recolonisation of Zambia and Africa is a mark of how well they have concealed their intentions or how well they have used their puppets to secure their goals.

But we can see through them. We reject the decision by the President to bestow State honours on those who helped him ascend to power. With all due respect to Mr Obasanjo, Mr Koroma, or Mrs Johnson, there is absolutely nothing that they have done for Zambia that merits them those honours. No one in Monze, Chadiza, Kanyama or Luwingu knows anything done by anyone of them to promote democracy or raise the standards of living of Zambians. Yes, they are clearly important to the President, like Mr Greg Mills, but they have no relationship with Zambians. It is unacceptable and abuse of office for the President to use State honours to celebrate his friends or those who helped him in his political career.

The President is becoming so arrogant and drunk with power that he is no longer afraid to expose to Zambians who actually bought him the presidency. He thinks the time has now come to start celebrating these people and to impose them on us as our heroes. No, the Brenthurst Foundation and their agents shall never be our heroes. We reject any attempt to launder the image of those who are committed to recolonising Zambia, Africa, and to securing our minerals – led by copper and cobalt – on the cheap.

To this end, we promise to withdraw those disgraceful honours conferred in the name of our homeland immediately we assume office. We urge the recipients to either return them to avoid future embarrassment or to enjoy them as much as possible for the lifespan of the presidency of the one who issued them. Our national honours are sacred and must never be used to launder members of Brenthurst Foundation.

If there is any person who deserves to be honoured for their contribution to fostering democratic outcomes, it is late president Rupiah Banda – and that is for the important role that Mr Banda played to get Mr Edgar Lungu to concede defeat and ensure a smooth transition. Yes, Mr Koroma and Jakaya Kikwete, the former president of Tanzania, helped in the transition discussions but it was Mr Banda who led and even hosted the talks that brought the outgoing president and the president-elect to the negotiating table. But we know that the President cannot honour Mr Banda – even posthumously – and Mr Kikwete because they are not members of the Brenthurst Foundation – the only thread that ties the three people he has honoured.

There are many Zambians who have contributed to the advancement of democracy but have never been honoured. Who, for instance, can forget the role played by Archbishop Telesphore Mpundu, Simon Zukas, Brebner Changala and their OCIDA organisation in standing up to the last regime and advancing democracy? Yet all these don’t matter because – well, they are not board members of the Brenthust Foundation!

We know that the President gets angry when we say he is a puppet of foreign interests, but if he were to sit down and carefully reflect, he will realise that what makes him angry is the accuracy of that description. It is wrong for anyone, including puppets, to use public office to start dishing out State honours to their masters or their masters’ agents.

We urge the President to retreat from the pro-imperialism path he has taken and prioritise the interests of Zambians, not the Brenthurst Foundation. It is him, not Mr Greg Mills or the Brenthurst Foundation that Zambians voted for.

Mr President, please stop listening to or doing the bidding of foreigners and begin to pay attention to what those who elected you say.

By Venus N Msyani

It would be better if Home Affairs Minister Jack Mwiimbu retracted the warning on the planned protest during the AU summit in Lusaka.

President Hakainde Hichilema promised that by shouting Bally youth will be getting employment. For the past ten months youth have been shouting Bally. Very few have been employed.

The rest are being told to be patient. While waiting some have resorted into self-employment through mobile money business. Instead of appreciating, the government seem to be against the idea. Mobile money business booths are being removed from the city in the name of keep Lusaka clean for the upcoming AU summit.

It has angered affected mobile money operators and their sympathizers. They are planning a peaceful protest during the African Union (AU) summit, which has just commenced in Lusaka. To pass message to visitors who are in the country for the summit that Zambian government has no heart for its people.

Few days ago, Jack Mwiimbu warned that anyone who will be found protesting will be delt with. According to Mr. Mwiimbu, the government is aware of some unscrupulous individuals and their supporters that want to take advantage of the AU conference to carry out illegalities.

Peaceful protest is welcome in every democracy and that is what people are planning to do. Mr. Mwiimbu should be warning of violence.

If peaceful protests were illegal, they would not be allowed near the United Nations Headquarters. When heads of state and government gather at the United Nation in New York for the General Assembly, the UN surrounding is greeted with various peaceful protests.

It should not be a problem for the AU summit in Lusaka to be greeted the same. The United Party for National Development (UPND) administration is missing a point.

A year ago, Zambians were not allowed to protest. They conducted protests in the bush. Because of that, it shouldn’t be hard for Mwiimbu and his team to realize that protest will work in favor of UPND.

New dawn administration is claiming to have restored freedom of expression, which most of us believe is not true. Allowing protest during events such as AU summit, would prove that indeed freedom of expression has been restored in the country.

It would be better if Hon. Jack Mwiimbu retracted the warning on the planned protest.

By Webby Banda Senior Researcher (Extractives) Centre for Trade Policy and Development (CTPD)

Mining continues to be the backbone of Zambia’s economy accounting for over 10 percent of GDP and over 70 percent of export earnings. The sector also positions itself as a significant source of domestic revenue generation. Additionally, it continues to be a source of employment for many Zambians. The sector presents itself as a low-hanging fruit that government can exploit to propagate economic development. As the government receives proposals to be encapsulated in the 2023 national budget, we expect clear-cut reforms that are going to initiate growth within the sector.

In the last budget presentation, the Minister of Finance reintroduced the deductibility of mineral royalty to compute corporate income tax. This was a move aimed at economically unlocking the mining sector. Additionally, this is an international best practice that has somewhat made our taxation regime competitive by reducing the average effective tax rate. Although this policy reform is progressive, it was mainly targeted at unlocking the business potential of large-scale mining players that pay corporate income tax. However, the government should not be hoodwinked in further redesigning the taxation regime to favour large-scale mining companies at the expense of our domestic revenue mobilization objective.

At present, there is an agenda to further change the operating mechanics of the sliding scale mineral royalty citing that this will bring in more investment. It must be stressed that mineral royalty is not the only financial instrument that makes up the mining fiscal regime. Other instruments such as withholding tax, VAT, import, and export duty are equally important. Hence, one wonders about the high obsession to further fine-tune the mineral royalty fiscal instrument.

Government in the past has put in place policies that are lopsided in favour of large-scale mining enterprises at the expense of small-scale mining players. This is comprehendible because a huge portion of mining revenue emanates from large-scale mining players. However, the artisanal and small-scale mining sector should not be underplayed because it is a source of livelihood for many Zambians that cannot get white-collar jobs. This being so we expect reforms that catalyze its growth and inhibit its informality.

In the next budget proposal, the Centre for Trade Policy and Development (CTPD) expects the government to introduce a sector-specific taxation regime for the artisanal and small-scale mining sector. This should be aimed to foster compliance by lowering the tax burden. Currently, the taxation regime does not differentiate between small- and large-scale players. This has arguably led to the over-taxation of the latter driving the increase in the informal sector size. Although it is appreciated that government has a limited operational budget to support the mining sector, we at least expect an increase in funding to obtain geological information. The provision of geological information must be targeted at artisanal and small-scale players because of their financial incapacitation to undertake prospecting and exploration works.