Zambia’s newspaper, ‘The Post’ of 3 October 2007, carries a Zambia Wildlife Authority tender for the granting of a “ Safari Hunting Concession in Nyampala Hunting Block: Munyamadzi Game Management Area”. Nothing unusual in that you might say, except for the fact that there still exists a legal concessionaire of Nyampala, Leopard Ridge Safaris. ZAWA appears to have forgotten that they removed the concession from Leopard Ridge without due process, that the concession was re-instated by the Lusaka High Court in favour of Leopard Ridge, and that they then appealed to the Supreme Court – the case which is to be heard on 23 October 2007. ZAWA’s legal advisor appears not to have informed his Director-General that such a tender prejudices the Supreme Court appeal.
And one must not forget that the Nyampala Community Resource Board, the partner in the Hunting Concession Agreement - along with ZAWA and Leopard Ridge, had obtained their own High Court injunction, allowing Leopard Ridge to continue hunting, later overturned on purely procedural grounds in the Supreme Court, a terrible blow against rural residents of hunting concessions. Of course, when this happened, ZAWA sent in a force of paramilitary and their own schutztruppe at 4.00 am into one of Leopard Ridge’s camps, ordering Leopard Ridge to close down and depart the area. I wonder what the client whom they had hunting thought of it all.
And Leopard Ridge is also due to appear in court again – along with a few other companies, including our own, in yet another action brought by the National Movement Against Corruption against us, despite them having already lost in the High Court (with costs) and, the Supreme Court. The case? We had overshot our game hunting quotas they charged, something unproven and untrue. But NAMAC, it appeared, believed that their real intention was to expose some corrupt elements in ZAWA who had done nothing about bringing us miscreants to justice. It is all a little far fetched.
As we speak, our lawyer awaits a bundle of documents from the NAMAC lawyer so that the fresh action may commence.
So, it appears that NAMAC, rather than fighting corruption, is an unwitting part of it. If you look at Leopard Ridge’s situation and the case of Ed Smythe – an operator who simply had his concession removed and given ‘administratively’ to someone else, it is hard to dispute. And who is it that funds NAMAC, supposedly there to fight corruption itself? The Danish Government.
Are they aware of how their money is being mis-used?
