Press Conference

Last week’s State House press conference brought to centre stage a refocus on the economic state of the nation, and the challenges that confront us in 2009.

Key areas reported on, were the nation’s anti-corruption initiatives, the four pillars of the Fifth National Development Plan, and the plight of selected State Enterprises that have traditionally been major players in the economy.

One interesting element of the press conference was the Government’s intention to have two new bills passed in the next session of Parliament, where one of them would entrench the Public–Private-Partnership (PPP) program in the Government service delivery machinery, through the Public Private Partnership Bill.

This initiative opens the door to new opportunities for sincere collaborative efforts between the public sector and the private sector, to build the economy much more rapidly at both infrastructure level and production level. Zambia finds it difficult to exploit the many opportunities that the vast natural resources offer, either due to insufficient infrastructure, or to limited private sector capacity.

The PPP is one mechanism that seeks to address this weakness. Not only can this PPP initiative offer options to develop the nation, but it also goes a long way towards building a national development team, that encompasses the key stake holders who are directly affected by the impact of national decisions.

Another instrument that will be set before Parliament will be the Information and Electronic Technology Bill which hopes to address the ICT challenges and needs that will work in favour of Zambia socio-economic development goals. To this end, the international norms and best practices that are adopted in developed countries may not be appropriate for a developing country such as Zambia. Hopefully, Zambia’s special and developmental ICT needs that will support both social and economic development, will be addressed in an appropriate way so as to enhance the pace and rate of domestic growth with special emphasis on businesses and education.

Typical hurdles faced by Zambia due to international norms, are the frequency allocation bands for various technologies. Zambia does not need to follow a blueprint of a developed economy that has exhausted its frequency allocations on account of thousands of licenses having been issued. Zambia currently offers only a handful of both radio and television stations across the entire country. In addition, many ICT technologies are converging such that television, radio, data, and communications use the same technologies and frequencies unlike in the past where they were distinctly identified and catered for in the frequency allocation matrix.

The expansion of the Lands Tribunal Act through an amendment will be useful for addressing the many issues that come up due to conflicts in land allocation and more recently, due to unauthorized land allocation that has characterized many local councils. The current fights over land deny the country economic and social development, and in many cases, lock land away unused for many years until the disputes are resolved.

The new strategic direction highlighted to by the President placed much emphasis on dialogue with the social sector Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) and the many Faith Based Organizations (FBO’s). Although the government has engaged the Private Sector through the PPP initiative and other programs, continued emphasis must be made to place the private sector at the forefront of development initiatives so that much of the deliberations and resolutions can be taken from the conference rooms and put into practical implementation programs. Zambia has always been labeled as a country where good ideas are conceived and developed, but they are seldom implemented in any meaningful way.

A major element of the press conference was the waving of the yellow card by the President. This exercise was directed to the civil service with particular focus to Permanent Secretaries (PS’s) in the various Ministries. There is a clear link between the commitment of a civil servant to serving the public, and the performance of the particular Ministry in delivering the goods to the public.

Businesses are compelled to interact with various Government Ministries to secure licenses, permits and other resources that enable the businesses to become productive and create both wealth and jobs. A functioning and efficient Civil Service plays a significant role in promoting, supporting and facilitating business activity in any country, and Zambia is no exception.

The challenge to PS’s to either shape up, or ship out, is a fair request. Some restructuring may have to be done to repair the damage to the Civil Service that previous Governments may have done, through the removal of operational rules and regulations that promote a responsive civil service that operates professionally, and outside the political arena.

Zambia will soon be part of the COMESA Customs Union and the quality of our Civil Service, investment environment, and our capacity to engage with our regional neighbours, will be a major factor in profiling ourselves as either a country that will use the Customs Union as a development tool, or become a country that is used in the Customs Union to develop our neighbours.

Part of the acid test now, is to see how much of the press conference information and decisions will be converted into action and results. Every Zambian is a stakeholder, and as such, is responsible for taking some equity in the nation building exercise that is ongoing.

Published 30 June 2009

Due Process

Lately, the media has printed many pages of story lines on the subject
of corruption, mis-management, abuse, and theft in the public sector.

Tribunals, court cases and trials in the media have flavoured the
first half of this year. The country has seen debates and discussions
in the urban areas, on which Government officer stole what, and which
Government Minister made some illicit deals.

The net result is that the public have been subjected to
mis-information, polarized views, and continued use of tax payer’s
money on issues that have not solidly taken the country forward. This
is evident by the ongoing grumblings and mumblings on the streets
about corruption, abuse of office, and theft within the Government
machinery even after tribunal findings have been publicized and some
Court rulings have been made.

The fact is that the public at large sit in a position of
dissatisfaction with the final outcomes of investigations, hearings,
and findings in respect to public sector indiscretions. There is an
empty and unfulfilled feeling at the end of each episode, possibly
because the final outcomes fail to take the country forward in any
conclusive manner.

The public dissatisfaction is a good point to start analyzing where
the underlying cause may come from. Irrespective of whether due
process was followed in tackling the various accusations made against
public workers and Government Ministers, the reality on the ground is
that the public exhibit a sense of non-closure to the issues that have
caught the media front pages over the last six months.

One possible reason for this non-closure may be that much of the
debates and shuffling was focused on only one goal: to prove a wrong
doing performed by a public worker or a Government Minister which
should be rewarded by some form of punishment. When at the end of it
all there is insufficient evidence to conclusively prove a wrong
doing, no punishment is meted out and the whole affair appears to sit
in limbo unresolved because insufficient evidence may fail to secure a
conviction, but does not amount to absolute innocence.

The trend in Zambia is to focus only on evidence and not to consider
other aspects such as integrity, sincerity, and judgment.

In many other countries when public workers are seen to act without
integrity, or insincerely, and exhibit poor judgment, they are forced
to resign or are sacked by the appointing authority. This is evident
in the USA when the former World Bank president was seen to influence
the remuneration package of a female friend. In the UK several senior
Government officers and public officials resigned their positions in
the wake of accusations of expense claims that were not considered
normal. Italy has seen Presidents resigning their official offices
because of having extra marital affairs that are not criminal offences
but are considered distasteful in the eyes of the public. The
rationale is that if a President can cheat on his wife then he can
also cheat on his country as Head of State.

Much as Zambia puts much effort on following due process when
analyzing the conduct of public officers and Government Ministers, it
is equally important to use the issues on the table to develop more
robust processes that protect the public interest, protect the public
workers, and protect the Government Ministers.

The flip side of the due process paradigm that either convicts or
clears a public figure, is to ensure that in the future an equally
robust due process is followed in performing public duties on behalf
of the people of Zambia.

What lessons did we learn from the Ministry of Communications MOU
saga? What new measures have we put in place to ensure that a similar
situation does not arise in the future? What options are there for
Cabinet Office to compel the various Government Ministries to follow
approved procedures for handling MOU’s, Agreements, and Contracts? How
can we use the expensive lessons learned from the losses at the
Ministry of Health to tighten up processes and procedures in managing
public funds to prevent similar occurrences in the future? Is there a
compelling case for the office of the Accountant General to be more
pro-active in monitoring, evaluating and making corrections to
Government accounting systems to curb the opportunities for losses in
the future? What options are there to strengthen the linkages between
the Attorney General’s Office and the various Government Ministries
and Statutory bodies such that legal advice is easily and mandatory
given where required in an effort to protect the interests of the
country?

These questions may appear to be unanswered as several of the on going
cases are concluded, and therefore, become the root for
dissatisfaction and non-closure in the eyes of the public.

The private sector is also affected by this perception as it ingrains
a sense of insecurity and lack of confidence in the public sector. The
end result is fueled corruption and a higher cost of doing business
within the country.

It is time that Zambia matured to a level where some of our goals
should be to follow due process of the law, to ensure integrity,
sincerity and good judgment in the public sector, and to evolve our
due processes and procedures in Government.

Currently our focus is so narrow that we miss the opportunity to
improve our performance and conduct, such that we fail to understand
why more impoverished countries in our region continue to attract
higher rates of investment than ourselves.

Published 23 June 2009

Travel Scramble

The month of June ushers in the cold weather but this year also brings the scramble for new Passports and Travel Documents.

All old passports ceased to be valid for outward travel from Zambia on 31st May 2009 but remain useable only for inward travel to Zambia only until 31st August 2009.

It is understandable that the Ministry of Home Affairs would like to replace all old black cover passports with the new green cover replacements in a short a time as possible, but the challenges of achieving this require some analysis and strategic planning.

Long queues running to the main road are the order of the day at the passport office. All payment counters experience extended queues such that even the express applications which attract a K200,000 additional charge are congested throughout the day. The building is overrun by applicants who are either jostling in the queues or milling about in the corridors in an effort to influence the speed of production of their passports.

Express applications are designed to be processed within 5 working days and standard applications are set to be ready for collection within 15 working days. A Travel Document however can be obtained in one day and is valid for 6 months.

Application forms are obtained from the ground floor foyer but passport applications and passport collections are performed on the first floor at the relevant counters where most of the congestion is experienced.

Cashiers that collect payments for passport applications spend much of their time checking that the forms are in order and take about ten minutes to process each applicant. Passport officers on the ground floor are available for consultation, but nobody seems to use them at all. A short analysis at the payment counters revealed that two to three applications out of every five are turned away due to issues with the documentation presented to the cashiers. Documentation issues include non-compliant photographs, non-certified copies of relevant ID’s, lack of recommender on application forms, and non-completion of requirements on application forms.

After the applications are successfully submitted, applicants immediately queue up to go for interviews before the passport processing phase begins. These queues are equally long but are processed much faster because the interview process is generally quite efficient.

Passport applications then go through the main processing system via the various officers before being dispatched to an off site location for printing. This results in two bundles being developed; one at the passport office waiting to be dispatched to the printing site, and one at the printing site waiting to be dispatched back to the passport office for collection by applicants.

Many applicants queue up daily at the passport office to check if their passports are ready and if so, hopefully collect them. This means applicants will queue up for several days in a row until they physically obtain their passports.

The congestion and uncertainty at the passport office has bred some peculiar behaviour patterns. Applicants tend to hang around the passport offices to follow passport officers in an effort to ensure that their applications are steadily going through the processing cycle and are not forgotten or lost. Some self appointed passport application agents will stand in the long queues on behalf of applicants to keep a slot in the slow moving queue. A small fee is levied for this service and other such services that take the pressure off the applicants in the passport application pipeline.

There are some opportunities for the passport office to operate more efficiently and effectively through some basic reorganization of processes and dissemination of relevant information to the public.

The current status of having passport officers stationed at the ground floor foyer is clearly not working well. It would be more efficient and effective for two or three officers to stand at the entrance to the staircase and check every applicant’s documents before they are allowed to go upstairs to the payment counters. This would reduce the rejection rate to zero at the counters and reduce the payment process from ten minutes per applicant to less than five minutes. This exercise would increase processing throughput by more than 100 percent.

The passport office would see some order in the various offices and a reduction of applicants milling around the corridors would allow officers to concentrate on processing applications. This improvement in focus within the passport office would also result in an increase in productivity of more than 100 percent.

Another improvement in operations can be in the area of disemination of information. Each batch of passports delivered to the passport office for collection by the public could be accompanied by a list with names and passport numbers. The list could be displayed on a notice board in an appropriate room so that every applicant can check if their passport is ready for collection. If the passport is on a list then the applicant has good reason to go upstairs to queue and collect their passport. If not, then the applicant need not wait but come back the next day to check on the board again. This exercise can even be computerized and beamed with a data projector onto a big screen for all to see and read. The data projector option allows for real time updating of the collection list much like those in airports showing flight arrivals and departures. This is nothing too complicated or impossible to do.

The above measures do not require any financial investment but simply some human resource rearranging and systems management in order to double or treble productivity in passport processing.

At the moment cross border traders are spending sleepless nights trying to obtain a passport to earn a living. Many business travelers are opting to secure a travel document whilst the passport is being processed. Much wastage of time, material and money is being experienced by business people as they scramble to travel to make some money to pay rents, school fees, medical bills and buy food for the family.

The overload at the passport office has resulted in files being lost or misplaced, passports not being collected because many applicants have opted to apply for a travel document in addition to the passport, and several mistakes may be made on the data in passports issued such that the passport holder could find themselves detained in other countries due to inconsistent information on their travel documents.

The Ministry of Home Affairs is part of the civil service. As such, the Ministry should design its processes around the needs of the people and not for the people to be made to comply with the fancies of the Ministry.

There is much business that is being lost by businessmen and women that are spending untold hours at the passport office waiting for their documents to come through. This can be avoided and steps should be taken immediately to address this bottleneck that is choking trade between Zambia and the outside world.

Published 16 June 2009

Disclosure

Last week the World Bank conducted some ongoing dialogues on their intending new Disclosure Policies.

There has been recognition that the policy of placing information and documentation on a Positive List for disclosure to the public has not been that beneficial to both the World Bank and its customers in the developing world.

The new thinking is to opt to disclose literally everything that the World Bank is engaged in, and instead develop a Sensitive List that would protect the interests of the World Bank and its borrowers, by keeping certain information Privileged and Accessible to selected parties. The Sensitive List would include incomplete contract negotiations, and information which if released to the public, would do undue harm to either the World Bank or any of its customers.

Beyond this new open door policy for access to information, the World Bank is considering the frequency of sharing information with the public as a possible mechanism, that will enrich the development dialogue in both the World Bank’s ranks, and in the borrower countries themselves.

This new thinking about Disclosure of information in respect to Quantity and Time, fits in snugly with Zambia’s own challenges of information sharing.

Within Government circles, there has been an admission that as a country, we have not done very well in sharing information amongst the concerned stakeholders namely; The Government, Civil Society, and the Private Sector. Only recently has the private sector been able to access information on the new Economic Zones that are sprouting up on the Copperbelt and in Lusaka.

Many initiatives within COMESA and SADC are generally shared with the public as press releases rather than open dialogue during the decision making process. Contracts and Agreements are not readily available for public consumption or scrutiny, thereby leaving the Civil Society and the Private Sector out of the debates and dialogues that would enrich the Governments knowledge on the subject, and result in better decisions for the benefit of all Zambians.

For example, the Mining Development Agreements which were signed between the Government and each mining company, are supposed to be public documents, but one would be at pains to access a copy of these documents which impact on the well being of the nation.

The spirit of the current Zambian National Constitution is to ensure that all Contracts and Agreements that are of a developmental nature, should be accessible by the public through the Ministry of Justice, which is the custodian of these documents. At this point in time, public access to such documents at the Ministry is almost impossible.

There is an old adage that goes as follows: ‘Information is Power’. One might argue that ‘Knowledge is Power’. However we paraphrase this we can conclude that ‘Enlightenment is Power’, as this encompasses both information and knowledge.

Until now, many multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, and many Governments have seemingly worked on the understanding that ‘Our Power is based on what we let you know’. This may also be motivated by ‘the less you know, the fewer questions you will ask’.

One hopes that the new thinking on Disclosure of information will be considered in the spirit of development and accountability. To this end, inviting criticism and comment on any issue can only be good for both the World Bank and their customers in the developing world.

The best decisions are those that are made after much open deliberation, dialogue and have been subjected to public scrutiny.

The challenge that the World Bank and our Governments now face, is who decides what information should be withheld from the public? What information if put in the public domain, would result in harm to the World Bank, or harm to the Government?

Disclosure is a tall order for institutions that have traditionally behaved in a secretive fashion. A meaningful Disclosure program will do wonders for both social and economic development in any institution or country.

Published 9th June 2009

New Routes

Zambia has discussed extensively, the need for developing our trade capacity with special emphasis on our traditional trading partners namely; South Africa and the European Union.

Our history of trade indicates that our trade relationships with our much larger trading partners has not impacted very positively on the growth of our own economy, but relegated Zambia to a useful market for foreign products. Much of the state of affairs may be due to the basic fact that Zambia is a much smaller and weaker economy than those of our traditional trading partners, and therefore struggles to achieve equity in the trading relationships.

Zambia has eight physical neighbours and two additional virtual neighbours being Burundi and Rwanda. Zambia has not taken full advantage of its neighbourhood except for small scale cross border trading. Opportunities exist for expanding on our neighbourhood training regime such that by default, we can develop a trading market comprising of the eleven countries. There are many synergies amongst the eleven countries and the characters of each economy can complement each other rather than aggressively compete against each other.

The inter country infrastructure installed and being developed offers new opportunities for neighbourhood trade. Chirundu border post has a new bridge into Zimbabwe, and the customs facilities have been upgraded to facilitate increased and more efficient trade between the two countries. The Nakonde border post has experienced some renovations and the customs facility has been revamped to promote greater trade between Zambia and Tanzania. Kazangula has also seen improved customs infrastructure to support the business activity between Zambia and Botswana. A modern bridge was erected at Katima Mulilo to open up trade routes between Zambia and Namibia with new access to the Atlantic Ocean port of Walvis Bay. A new bridge was recently installed at Chembe to link the Luapula Province with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in a bid to promote trade between Zambia and the DRC, and to provide a trade corridor between the Copperbelt and the Luapula Province through the Congo Pedicle.

It is quite clear to see that some trade routes are much busier than others due to the traditional business relationships since Independence in 1964. The opportunities to develop new trade routes to include the Mwami border post which opens a trade corridor between Zambia and Malawi, and the Chanida border post which can expose business options between Zambia and Mozambique, should be given some special attention for alternate trade routes that may be more beneficial to Zambia than the current routes taking central focus.

The Mpulungu Harbour offers some special opportunities to trade with Eastern DRC, Western Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda. Currently the only major trade taking place at Mpulungu is exports of Cement from Zambia and Tanzania.

Zambia has not paid much attention to trading with the Middle East in respect to the export of food products such as beef, goats, vegetables and fruit. Zambia’s exports tend to go to Europe to be re-packaged and re-exported to the Middle East with the major income from this trade, going to the European Union.

Zambezi Airlines has recently acquired a new aircraft to service the region. The challenge for developing new routes where the best and consistent return on investment will impact on the sustainability of the business is essential. The domestic and regional budget airline service is worth considering for catering for the neighbourhood inter country travel, as a strategy for survival during this global economic recession.

Published 2nd June 2009