Tag Archives: Zambia

Zambian elections

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The Zambian elections will be held on the 20th of this month.

The main candidates are incumbent President Rupiah Banda (RB) and opposition leader Michael Sata (Sshhh, don’t kubeba). The two are running on the MMD (movement for multiparty democracy) and PF (Patriotic Front) tickets respectively. Both parties have fielded parliamentary candidates in all constituencies. PF is widely expected to take the urban areas and most of the developed parts of the country. MMD’s stronghold is in the rural areas.

Many on the streets of Lusaka and other parts of the country – well mostly along the railway line coming down from Nakonde – believe that it will be a close election.

They also think that if it were truly a clean election Sata would win.

MMD knows this and has been distributing chitenge and other goodies like there is no tomorrow. This has prompted PF’s slogan of don’t kubeba (don’t tell them); which asks voters to take the chitenges and money but not tell MMD that they are truly PF. I have seen pictures of women in the Post in which women have two chitenges on: a PF one covered by an MMD one.

Because of the deep skepticism over the integrity of the upcoming elections many in Lusaka think that there might be disturbances if PF does not win.

More on this soon.

THE TAZARA (TOTAL TIME: 2 DAYS 1 HOUR 26 MINUTES)

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UPDATE: The photos to accompany this post can be found here.

Note: I will post some photos to accompany this post as soon as I get to a place with a faster internet connection. The post is from Friday, September 2nd.

Over the last two days I have been on the TAZARA from Dar es Salaam to Kapiri-Mposhi. The ride lived up to my expectations, despite the many unexplained delays along the way – the longest was a 4-hour wait in Mbeya (where we stopped either to have the engine serviced or wait for the other train from Zambia).

The train was rather old and showed years, if not decades, of disrepair. That said it was clean and livable. The sleeper coaches had two bunk beds each and were swept twice over the whole journey. They had pillows, a bed sheet and a blanket for the beds. The bathrooms were cleaned every few hours by the tireless crew. The train had lounge and restaurant cars. The lounge had a bar with an assortment of beers from Kenya and Tanzania (I had Tusker the whole way). The restaurant had a limited menu of rice or chips and beef or chicken. In the morning they served breakfast of egg, sausage and sliced bread with tea. Food is served both in the restaurant and in the passenger cars.

The view along the way was fantastic. The Tanzanian side was sparsely populated while the Zambian side was almost empty. We were unfortunate to pass through Selous Reserve (in Tanzania) during the night so we didn’t see any wild animals on the way. Perhaps the ride from Zambia back to Dar passes through the reserve whilst the sun is still up. But animals aren’t the only natural attraction on the Dar-Kapiri line.

The stunning beauty of the Tanzanian and Zambian countryside more than made up for not having seen any wildlife. The sunrise and sunsets were spectacles to behold. The mountains and rolling hills also provided great views. And then there are the smooth endless rides across the plains of northern Zambia between Mpika and Serenje and again onwards toward Kapiri-Mposhi. 

The ride also exposes the endemic poverty in rural Tanzania and Zambia. Quite frankly this was the low-point of the two days.

And it is not just the grass-thatched structures that betrayed their occupier’s meager incomes. At every stop kids with their whole bodies covered in dust would run along the tracks screaming “kopo kopo” (kopo is Swahili for bottle) in a rather bizarre re-enactment of The gods Must be Crazy. People on the train threw empty water bottles, sweets and other items at the kids. Some of them begged for money from the handful of passengers on first and second class cars in the rear of the train.

Day One (Tuesday-Wednesday): 



The departure from Dar was delayed.

The previous day I had missed my Akamba bus out of Nairobi in the morning (I overslept and even my older brother’s valiant attempt to get me there on time did not help) and so had to fly to Dar in order to not miss the Tuesday afternoon train. I arrived in Dar on Monday at around 2 PM in the afternoon. Traffic was terrible. I could not find accommodation at the first three places I checked. The fourth place looked rather sketchy – enough to spook even a true Nairobian like me.

So I settled for the pricier Rainbow Hotel close to downtown. The room was very nice – it had a hot shower, air-conditioning and satellite TV. It also had an over-priced restaurant on the second floor that served very well made Indian food. 

On arrival in Dar and before going on my hotel hunt I asked the Taxi driver to take me to the train station so I could book my ticket for the next day. The lady at the counter calmly told me that the train was fully booked (first class) until the following Tuesday.

I did not have a week to spend in Dar so I pleaded with her, to no avail. She directed me to the coach class counter with the option of upgrading to first class along the way. I was not wiling to risk sitting in coach for two days. So I bought a first class ticked for the 6th of September (a week later) but decided to try my luck anyway the following day (Tuesday) in case there were any cancellations.

The next day the same taxi driver drove me to TAZARA two hours before the 2 PM reporting time. He then asked one of the luggage handlers if there was any way we could get a ticked before the 2 PM departure time. The man directed us to the office of the stationmaster. It is in there that the lady in charge called the ticket office and asked the person on the other end of the line to sell one Ken Opalo a ticket in first class for the 2 o’clock train. She then took my other ticket. No questions asked.

Because of my desperation to take the TAZARA, I had just been robbed of US $80. Thanks very much TAZARA.

It turns out this is an elaborate scheme: The lady at the counter puts up a sign saying that tickets are sold out until the following weak at which point passengers must see the stationmaster and pay a premium for available tickets. This elaborate scheme has its glitches. For half the trip we had in my compartment a guy who had been sold a ticket in a women only compartment. He slept on the couches in the lounge car the first night.

Departure time was 4.30 PM. In just under two hours dusk was upon us and with it came the darkness that is the African countryside at night. I tried reading but promptly fell asleep. I was however woken up by the loud snoring for the guy on the top bunk and couldn’t go back to sleep for the better part of the long stop at a town called Mrimba.

Wednesday morning I was up by 6.30 AM. I read until the breakfast guy came to the compartment. Thereafter I continued reading until the 4-hour stop at Mbeya where I managed to get off the train and stretch my legs. After Mbeya I went to hang out in the lounge and read a bit more until it was dinner time. By the time the sun set I was so tired that I fell asleep as soon as I finished dinner.

Day Two (Thursday):

Thursday morning I woke up at 5.35 AM. One of the guys in my compartment was getting off at Kasama. He and I had build a sense of camaraderie since leaving Dar es Salaam several hours earlier. He is a globe-trotting businessman and evangelist from Kasama – the Capital of Zambia’s Northern Province. He passionately assured me that Michael Sata will win the Zambian presidential election in three weeks and that the opposition “will not accept anything but victory.” The opposition slogan is “Don’t Kubeba” or don’t say.

The main opposition party is urging its supporters to take all the government money being dished out but not say who they’ll vote for. We helped him offload his many bags and gifts for his family through the window of our compartment. The train then left for Mpika.

Northern Zambia is mostly empty. For hours upon hours we did not see much except trees and the occasional telephone masts and power lines. Human settlements were rare and far in between. The long monotonous ride offered me time to read Railroaded by Stanford’s Richard White. The book provides an excellent account of the political economy of the development of North America’s great transcontinental railroads – I believe that at its inception in the 1970s TAZARA had the same dreams of linking the continent of Africa from coast to coast.

Soon the lunch waiter came knocking. At this point the ware of being in a loud and shaky contraption for almost two whole days was beginning to show. People were quieter. The train was emptier. Everyone was dying to get to Kapiri-Mposhi. I had my last meal on the train – kuku na wali. I then went back to reading in anticipation of the last stop at Kapiri-Mposhi. Even the fact that I still had another leg of the journey to Lusaka (this time by bus) and that I had not yet confirmed my accommodation once I got there did not interfere with my sense of accomplishment. In a few hours I was about to have endured one of the longest train rides in the world.

We arrived at Kapiri-Mposhi at 4.56 PM. The whole journey had take exactly 2 days 1 hour and 26 minutes. The two days without a shower or change of clothes was definitely worth it.

Now I had to endure another one and a half hour bus ride to Lusaka.

As I mentioned above the train schedule was rather unpredictable. But I managed to note down the times on which we arrived at some of the main stations along the way. Here is the schedule for the August 30th train from Dar to Kapiri-Mposhi:

Dar es Salaam 4:30 PM

Nzenga 5:38 PM

Watu 6.00 PM

Kisaki 8.21 PM

Mrimba 11:30 PM

Makambako 8:30 AM

Kangaga 10.08 AM

Rujewa 10:30 AM

Inyala 1:28 PM
Yore 1:53 PM

Mbeya 2:14 PM (we stopped here for 4 hours!!)

Mabrizi 6:33 PM

Idiga 7:05 PM

Tanduma-Nakonde 10:00 PM (Tan-Zam border. We left at 11.15 PM)

Kasama 5.35 AM (Central African Time. The rest of the times below are also CAT)

Mpika 8.45 AM

Kalonje 10.23 AM

Serenje 1.03 PM

Kapiri-Mposhi 4.56 PM

TOTAL TIME: 2 DAYS 1 HOUR 26 MINUTES

Quick hits

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Guide to arguing on the internet (HT Lauren).

Speaking of arguing on the internet, I like the drama that is spats between economists and other academics on their respective blogs.

The Economist presents the faces of famine in the Horn. It is beyond sad that so many people should be condemned to suffer this man-made tragedy.

Brett Keller has posts here and here on Sam Childers (a.k.a. machine gun preacher), a gun-runner into the habit of doing morally and ethnically dubious things in the name of God. Keller says that Childers is “stockpiling arms at his orphanage and has admitted to selling weapons to unnamed armed factions in Sudan, Uganda, and Rwanda.”

In Zambia (where I shall be for the elections in Sept.) the politics of citizenship and belonging are yet to be settled 50 years after independence. We recently witnessed the dangers of de-legitimizing whole sections of countries as outsiders in Cote d’Ivoire. I hope that if Sata ever wins he will not do what incumbent Ivorians did to ignite a rebellion in the northern reaches of their country. For more on this check out this great book on the Ivorian collapse. I have read it and absolutely loved it.

A muddy few months ahead for the South African government. Infighting with the ANC top brass might mean an early exit for President Zuma. With over 60% of the votes in the last election, the ANC is essentially an oversize coalition prone to internal wrangles. It will be interesting to see how Zuma weathers the storm in the midst of challenges from both COSATU and Malema.

Lastly, the current issue of the Journal of African Economies looks at the impact of higher education in Africa. The main takeaway is that the low quality of education at lower levels (primary and secondary) has meant that the biggest bang for the buck on the Continent, as far as education is concerned, only comes with higher education. Too bad that many of those that get higher education are underpaid or out of the Continent all together.

Will be blogging sporadically for the next week

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Dear readers, I have been away for a bit. Research/work and running the San Francisco half marathon (see images below) have kept me from blogging. I am back but will only be blogging sporadically for the next week or so.

In other news, next Thursday I head home to Kenya for a short vacation. My trip will also include brief visits to Uganda and Tanzania and an extended trip to Zambia (I will be there for the elections) before coming back to the Bay Area for year 3 of (hopefully) 5 of grad school.

Stay tuned.

Here are my marathon pictures.

chiluba dies

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The firebrand Zambian trade unionist-cum president, Frederick Chiluba, has died. The Daily Nation reports that the former president of Zambia died in the early hours of Saturday.

Mr. Chiluba came into power in 1991 following the defeat of Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia’s first multiparty elections. Although tainted by allegations of corruption – he has been accused of having embezzled US $46 million – Mr. Chiluba will be remembered as one of the fearless civil society leaders on the continent who championed the democratic cause at a time when it was dangerous to do so.

Ignoring the log in one’s own eye (forgive the hackneyed biblical metaphor)

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Hilary Clinton is on a tour of three African states. She is visiting Zambia, Tanzania and Ethiopia. This is what she had to say in Lusaka:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday warned Africa of a creeping “new colonialism” from foreign investors and governments interested only in extracting the continent’s natural resources to enrich themselves and not the African people. 

The point was directed at China.

But Mrs Clinton’s statement conveniently left out Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Uganda, among others. In these states the US government and American multinationals continue to cooperate with regimes that are obscenely corrupt and/or repressive for “constructive reasons.”

Chinese involvement in Africa is not clean, no doubt about that. Beijing’s support of the murderous regime in Khartoum is despicable. But this is nothing new. The US, Western Europe and Russia have done worse. The worst of all is the French who were in bed with the Rwandan army even as elements within it (Rwandan army) orchestrated the 1994 genocide.

Many people that I have spoken to about Chinese involvement in Africa seem to have lots to complain about, but they also like Chinese pragmatism. They get the roads built, the fibre cables laid out, etc.

I must say that Africans who are suffering under oppressive regimes still need western pressure on their governments to allow for more political space (however janus-faced this pressure might be). That said, Africa needs more options. A globally conscious China with lots of money to throw around will – in the long run – do more good than harm in Africa.

Their resources-for-(white elephant)-projects approach might yet prove to be better than the previous resources-for-Swiss-bank-accounts approach of Western multinationals.

And as has been the case with shady Western involvement in Africa, whenever the Chinese make deals that are bad for the locals the blame should be directed at the African governments who take side payments and look the other way.


Quick hits

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Texas in Africa’s review of Fighting for Darfur.

Blattman on economic growth and development.

The long arms of the Rwandan state?

The Zambian elections will be close. Last time round the opposition leader lost by a mere 3% (I will be there for the campaigns this summer).

And lastly, Kenya’s trillion-shilling proposed budget. High on development expenditure but could it crowd out the private sector?

 

quick hits

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The long awaited discussion about the real content of higher education in Africa is underway. Be a part of it.

The DRC is getting ahead of itself with elections. One wonders whether holding elections is the wisest thing to do right now. Wars raging in the east. A country the size of western Europe but with the most rudimentary infrastructure. Loads of mineral wealth that create a few billionaires – most of them non-Congoleses – while the real Congolese starve or eke out a living with one eye on the lookout for marauding rebels and government forces thugs. The DRC is one big mess in need of radical clean up. Kabila simply will not do it. But he will win these elections for sure. And that means more instability in the great lakes region.

I just found out that I shall be in Zambia for the election campaigns – elections due in October – so watch this space for stuff on Zambian politics this August and September.

And lastly, China is upping its involvement in the Kenyan economy. According to Business Daily:

Several Chinese manufacturers are already setting up local production plants in Kenya, shifting from the previous strategy in which they supplied the domestic consumer market with goods imported from their home country.

More jobs = lower infant mortality rates. Everybody wins.

the lion and the panda: still working on the relationship

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The ambiguities in China’s relationship with Africa have created fertile ground for politicians. Opposition parties, especially in southern Africa, frequently campaign on anti-China platforms. Every country south of Rwanda has had acrimonious debates about Chinese “exploitation”. Even in normally calm places like Namibia, antipathy is stirring. Workers on Chinese building sites in Windhoek, the capital, are said to get a “raw deal”. In Zambia the opposition leader, Michael Sata, has made Sino-scepticism his trademark.

Much of this is wide of the mark. Critics claim that China has acquired ownership of natural resources, although service contracts and other concessions are the norm. China is also often accused of bringing prison labour to Africa—locals assume the highly disciplined Chinese workers in identical boiler suits they see toiling day and night must be doing so under duress.

Even so, the backlash is perhaps unsurprising. Africans say they feel under siege. Tens of thousands of entrepreneurs from one of the most successful modern economies have fanned out across the continent. Sanou Mbaye, a former senior official at the African Development Bank, says more Chinese have come to Africa in the past ten years than Europeans in the past 400. First came Chinese from state-owned companies, but more and more arrive solo or stay behind after finishing contract work.

Many dream of a new life. Miners and builders see business opportunities in Africa, and greater freedom (to be their own bosses and speak their minds, but also to pollute). A Chinese government survey of 1,600 companies shows the growing use of Africa as an industrial base. Manufacturing’s share of total Chinese investment (22%) is catching up fast with mining (29%).

That is the Economist reporting on the ever-growing Sino-African relationship. The main takeaway point is that Africa is increasingly becoming a manufacturing base for Chinese companies. With that comes transfer of technology, development of local expertise, increased competition and exposure to what’s happening outside the continent. In a few decades Chinese labor will get too expensive to support a robust export-oriented economy. That, coupled with increased domestic consumption in China will provide a good chance for African countries to finally begin their own move towards export-oriented industrialization and service provision.

zambia’s trade wars with kenya misguided

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The fear of Kenyan big business is not limited to the East African Community. Zambia is the latest country to impose non-tariff barriers to trade (NTBs) against Kenya. The Southern African nation banned imports of dairy products from Kenya. Lusaka is also involved in a spat with Nairobi over palm oil based cooking oil. Both countries are members of the regional trading bloc COMESA. Thankfully, Kenya has not reciprocated any of Zambia’s misguided sanctions.

Lusaka should realize that the only people who benefit from protectionist policies are inefficient business owners who should be allowed to experience Schumpeterian creative destruction. Ordinary people at the supermarkets and kiosks just want cheap goods. Period.

Kenya’s Business Daily reports:

“We will not allow any milk imports from Kenya because it will negatively affect the growth of our dairy industry,” Mr Machila told the Times of Zambia last Thursday as Comesa moved closer to delivering its verdict on the five-year dispute.

Industrialist Vimal Shah, whose company Bidco Oils is the largest producer of cooking oils in Eastern Africa, says lack of clarity on Zambian demands remains the biggest obstacle to trade between the two nations. “Zambian authorities have remained shadowy with regards to the palm oil-based products and we don’t understand what they exactly want,” he said. “We have had several missions come around to verify whether such products are done locally but they never produce any confirmation reports.” Zambia is however known to prefer local production of cooking oils to help generate employment and tax benefits.

southern adventurism?

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Charles Onyango-Obbo, in Africa Review, has a piece documenting the cases of infidelity in Southern Africa involving the wives of heads of state. From Swaziland to South Africa to Zambia heads of state have had to manage spouses with “restless skirts.” Mr. Onyango-Obbo argues that part of the reason is that “Southern Africa as a region tends to have a more liberal take on sexual matters” adding that

“It is a mining region, and for over two generations men have left their families behind to go and work in the mines in a neighbouring. Some never returned, others did infrequently – often with second wives they had married. Just like lonely miners sought out newscompanionships in the new areas they worked and lived in, the wives they left at home eventually also filled the void left by their long-absent husbands.”

Although I don’t quite agree with Onyango-Obbo’s assertion that Southern Africans are more liberal when it comes to sexual matters, I do think that labor migration necessitated by the mining sector in the sub-region has had a profound impact not only on the institution of marriage but also on health outcomes. As a result the sub-region has the highest HIV infection rates in the world. I must also add that governments in the region have realized this and are trying to deal with the problem. Botswana, for instance, has an elaborate and fairly well run programme of providing HIV positive individuals with ARVs. South Africa, emerging from years of denial under Mbeki, is also trying to catch up.

the democratic republic of congo, what a mess

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The Democratic Republic of Congo is in a deep hole. And it is not just because its president, the younger Kabila, wants to extend presidential terms by 2 years and then may be abolish term limits, at least according to the Economist.  It is primarily because almost everyone in the country seems to have incentives to keep the war in the east raging on – well, everyone except the civilians on the ground. The New York Times reports that an upcoming UN Report will implicate bigwigs in the Congolese army of colluding with rebels in the east to profit from illegal mineral exports, among other commodities. FDLR, the rebel outfit which has among its ranks remnants of the genocidal Intarahamwe from Rwanda, is among the chief beneficiaries.

Quoting the Times:

“There is ….. creeping warlordism. Local army commanders are taxing timber, charcoal, tomatoes, anything that passes through their roadblocks, making $250,000 a month, the report said. Commanders are even conscripting civilians to haul wood through the forest, reminiscent of the Belgian colonial days when pith-helmeted officers whipped Congolese porters with hippopotamus hide.”

The Congo conflict is more than anything else an economic conflict. It will only stop when those profiting from it come to their senses (I don’t know what will prompt this if 5 million deaths and counting can’t do the trick). And the web of war-profiteers  is huge.

Meanwhile in Zambia, it’s everything goes like it is still 1991. A section of donors have suspended aid to the health ministry because $ 2.1 million went missing (“more than 100,000 Zambians die every year from malaria and HIV/AIDS”– Economist). The government is reluctant to fight corruption. Mr. Rupiah Banda, the current president, seems bent on becoming the new Frederick Chiluba – the kleptocrat who ruled Zambia for ten years. Things never change.