By Austin Mbozi
I disagree with Azwell Banda’s article (The Mast, November 26), that President Hakainde Hichilema (HH), ‘like all earlier presidents’, is supporting the global economic order driven by neo-colonial forces that might worsen Zambia’s economic misery.
Seemingly, HH is experimenting with Asian economic tiger models. Did I see a picture of him reading Lee Kuan Yew (1923-2015), the late Singapore prime minister? What might fail HH’s vision is not his pursuance of the neo-liberal order. It is black Zambians likely to fail him like they mismanaged Kenneth Kaunda’s nationalised companies under his 1968 Mulungushi Economic Reforms. Unlike Asian Tiger rulers who were authoritarian to force harmony and productivity among an already better-than-black Zambian’s productive citizenry, HH, like Kaunda, is doing the opposite: being Mr Nice and ‘democratic’ towards a totally irresponsible and unproductive population.
For a start, I credit give to Azwell for attempting to look at how Zambia can wriggle her way out of the powerful global forces. This is a relief because, apart from Socialist Party president Fred M’membe, many Zambians do not try to explain this important area. I encourage Azwell to respond to/attack my article. It’s boring when ‘intellectuals’ do not debate. Since Azwell did not explain this ‘order’, let us see how the German-American philosopher Thomas Pogge explains it, especially in his book, Politics as Usual: What Lies Behind the Pro-poor Rhetoric (2010). Make no mistake about it. Pogge, if this book is widely read, can be among the top thought influencers of our time after Jesus Christ, Prophet Muhammad, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Rawls and Confucius of China.
Backing his egalitarian moral theory with global economic statistics, Pogge accuses Western developed nations of perpetuating global poverty by creating a ‘global institutional order’ through their control of global financial institutions: the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) etc. Scheming behind these, they make it hard for poor nations to negotiate fair terms of engagement with wealthy nations while the little funds available to poor nations are wasted by corrupt regimes in the name of sovereignty, and these wealthy nations pretend not to notice because their own nations’ multinational companies are involved (an example is Zambia’s foreign mining companies’ cheating that they are making loses to dodge Company Income Tax (CIT).
And if the government imposes Mineral Royalty Tax (MRT) they threaten to pull out as they did when president Levy Mwanawasa imposed Windfall Tax). The ‘international borrowing privilege’, devised by wealthy nations, allows greedy and despotic rulers from poor nations to borrow huge funds from international financial institutions. These rulers enjoy the ’international resource privilege’ which allows them free use of these funds without international control (like PF-thief thugs borrowed over USD $14.7 billion). The result is that although these monies are borrowed on behalf of their citizens, these rulers misuse them for personal gain and for purchasing weapons.
Under the internationally recognized ‘national arms privileges’, these arms are used to silence dissenting voices and opposition parties. And yet, according to international law the future generations of those nations must repay these debts even if they did not benefit from them, while the wealthier nations recover these loans with interest paid by successors of these poor-nation rulers (like PF thief-thugs left their debt for HH and us to repay). Poor nation rulers also receive bribes from nationals of wealthy nations so that they sell off natural resources at giveaway prices. The WTO further allows affluent countries to subsidize their domestic producers. This makes their exports to poor countries cheaper, thereby destroying the local industry in these poor countries.
Simultaneously, the WTO allows these affluent countries to increase tariffs on imports to protect their local markets, thereby making exports from poor countries unprofitable. Furthermore, the WTO allows developing countries to hold patent rights even on essentials such as advanced medicines and seeds. Poor countries have no capacity for innovation. So, they are forced to import these essentials at high prices.
If Azwell’s argument is that these forces will eventually overpower UPND’s show of resistance, that is possible. But is it not correct to say that UPND is actively submitting itself to them? In fact, even Kaunda’s UNIP did not pursue them. It is the MMD party that tried out neo-liberal policies.
We as UPND are clearly against them. We are proving free primary education (though we admit that we have not yet tackled the major problem: tertiary education), recruiting some 40,000 health and education personnel, rejecting gay rights, and budgeting for payments to retirees. Our UPND promotes local entrepreneurs and only encourages multinationals where Zambians have no capacity, hence our increment of CDF and creation of the ministry for small/medium scale enterprises. Actually, it seems the IMF is the one actually submitting to our UPND dictates because they generally discourage such moves.
Yes, we as UPND have made some unfortunate moves. We should have at least consulted the opposition (not only UPND rubber-stamping MPs) about getting that US 4.2 billion loans for ‘debt management’ and ‘schools building’. We should also just admit that we are allowing fuel and electricity increases because of international economic realities we could not foresee while in opposition. This would have shown respect to people we rule rather than trying to defend ourselves as right all the time.
UPND’s failure is not likely to come from global order adherence but from our Mr. Nice approach. We are encouraging UPND cadres to also steal by promising PF-thief thug’s amnesty; even when we don’t have the legal power to do this. It will also be wrong to send CDF to ignorant, incompetent, and crooked masses without making laws that will detect/arrest CDF wasters. Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew was not a Mr. Nice democrat. He was proudly an illiberal no-nonsense disciplinarian, sending his own thief cadres to prison (watch him on YouTube).
The author is winding up his PhD in global economic justice at the University of Johannesburg. Phone: +260 978 741920, email: [email protected].
