That Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry, Felix Mutati complains of an influx of Chinese labourers into Zambia - labourers almost daily to be found squatting on the pavement outside the Lusaka airport awaiting their buses, but further confirmation that the Ministry of Home Affairs and its Department of Immigration are implementing a plan which Commerce and Industry have no control over. As I have an Immigration Department official on record as saying that it is they who decide who comes to - or leaves, Zambia, clearly investors have a problem, being lead down the garden path by the Ministry of Commerce - through its Zambia Development Agency, and abandoned to the the vagaries of a heavily politicised Department of Emigration. Chinese and miners be welcome, others beware!
On Tuesday 30 October, the High Court of Zambia will decide on just such a case. Watch this blog... and as a reminder of the problem, here is repeated part of a blog of some months ago dealing with the 'Adequacy of Zambia's Legal and Policy Framework' which I contributed to the Committee on Economic Affairs and Labour of the National Assembly, Zambia:
INTRODUCTION
The Zambia Development Agency Act No. 11 of 2006 takes the place of the repealed Acts: Investment Act; Privatization Act; Small Enterprise Development Act; Export Processing Zones Act; and the Export Development Act, creating the quango: The Zambia Development Agency
THE ACT’S ADEQUACY:
i) The national investment objectives
These are articulated based on generally accepted international norms. However, it is clear that, in their making, they are not the result of true consultation with civil society conducted in a transparent and participatory manner as they do not address the cultural and socio-wellsprings of society, and therefore will remain an idealistic goal ever unattainable. In plain terms, the objectives are not the views of general society.
ii) Government responsibilities to foreign investors
These are poorly delineated, leaving the investor, should anything go wrong, at the mercy of the Arbitration Act, a process anyhow avoided by a Government Executive in which power remains highly centralized, where foreign investors are able to be deported under emergency powers introduced to deal with a state of emergency under a previous regime. There therefore needs to be introduced a special committee of the judiciary, set apart from the Executive, to deal with matters affecting investors who are targeted by corrupt elements.
