The State v Ian Manning

Dear Adela,

Brendan and I appeared before a High Court judge today, who gave 14 days for more submissions supporting the affidavits of ours and Immigration's - judgement to be made on the affidavits, with a promise of a judgement in March. The affidavit produced by Immigration was ...interesting. However, the case rests on Section 30 of the Investment Act which clearly states that if investors obtain investment certificates they must be issued with self-employed or resident permits. What we got, as you know, were one year residence permits, which they then refused to extend on the supposed grounds that our business was not 'viable'. He also instructed Immigration to issue us with permits which will carry us through March. Power, I am reminded, is not what you are given but what you assume. However, we do wonder what happened to the Zambia Development Agency in all this. They were paid to facilitate our investment status and have left us high and dry. And the Zambia Business Forum? And I wonder if Business Action for Africa, of which we are corporate members, will do something. I still await confirmation of their anti-corruption programme in Zambia - touted at the recent G8 meeting in Germany.

Meanwhile legal warnings have been issued to the DG of ZAWA and Senior Chief Luembe to halt all moves by them to part Mbeza Safaris and its hunting concession, or to be in contempt of court. The DG was going around Safari Club International (SCI) in Reno last week, telling people that we had been 'terminated': not true, as our Community Resource Boards thwarted the move. He also told a meeting of Community Resource Board representatives - gathered illegally and without the support of their full Boards in order to terminate three hunting concessions from their lawful concessionaires (Nyampala, West Petauke and Msoro), that he had been told by government that I would not be issued with a work permit. Of course, behind all this are crooks and corrupt officials who object to my whistleblowing on illegal land alienations and who slaver after the land which our Luembe Conservancy Trust has legally under its control for 60 years. And the crooks want the concession. But at least the OP (the Shushu) no longer park outside my gate, the eight black shirted men with Dracula written on their back have not come back after the suburbs wild dogs chased them off, and my phone can no longer be tapped, and the fact that my emails were intercepted and our agents got to and warned not to send us business, may yet be overcome.

We have had Transparency International Zambia's full support, for which we are most grateful. And our attorney, Wynter Kabimba, is fearless and highly competent. Without TIZ and our attorney, and a still free judiciary, we would have been long gone, our $1.7 million yet another tombstone to the idealist investor, our communities, our schoolteachers, our little foster home, wondering what the hell happened to us.

A sympathetic Immigration officer told me recently during my recent two hour ordeal at the airport when coming back into the country, that a number of investors are being similarly treated; but they accept their deportations, never to be seen again.

And a word of congratulations to my friend Roy Clarke (Kalaki), and to Sara, who were reprieved from deportation by the Supreme Court, the latter observing that freedom of expression was one of the strong attributes of a democratic society. Let us hope whistleblowing is as well.

Many thanks for all your support. La lutra continua, and FAGA MOTO!
Yours aye
Ian

--
I. P. A. Manning
Co-Director: Luembe Conservancy Trust
Director: Gamefields Ltd
M.D. Mbeza Safaris
Corporate Member: Business Action for Africa (Anti-corruption programme)
Mobile Lusaka: 260 977 618246
http://zambiawatch.wordpress.com

Zambia Wildlife Authority official, Andrew Nkhoma, continues to sabotage community development.

A report just received from the Chairman of the Luembe Community Resource Board in the Luangwa Valley, is that the Nyimba ZAWA Community Liaison Officer, Andrew Nkhoma - who recently was party to the illegal arrest and abuse of a foreign hunting client - see http://zambiasafarihunting.blogspot.com and his seriously ill professional hunter, used undue pressure on Board members at a meeting on 28 December (convened to workshop finance management) and obtained a statement of condemnation of Mbeza Safaris operations and its delivery of community assistance. The Chairman has written a letter of objection to ZAWA.

Mbeza, which is funded by its holding company, Gamefields, the latter investing to the tune of $1.6 million in Mbeza and in the Luembe Conservancy Trust since 2003, was bought to assist in the development of the area. However, officials such as Nkhoma, doubtless upset by our revelations on the Nyimba ZAWA office's operation of a bushmeat and ivory poaching operation, would wish to have us removed, joining those with similar sentiments at ZAWA HQ and in some political circles. The only reason that Gamefields and Mbeza continue investing in Zambia is precisely because we have overwhelming community support. Should that not be forthcoming, we would be the first to accept that we were not wanted, and pack our bags. Mr Nkhoma has not heard the last of this.

PURPOSE OF ENTRY: TO WIND UP AND LEAVE THE COUNTRY

Today Brendan Manning, shareholder and manager of a company holding an investment certificate under the Investment Act, with an investment in rural Zambia over four years of $1.6 million, received a temporary permit extension at a cost of K2.5 million (kwacha @ 3850 to the $ dollar) or $649 - although the TP only admits to the payment of K2 million. This permit - supposedly issued on 24 October and valid to 24 January 2008, despite Immigration receiving a lawyers letter and a personal visit to ensure that the TP be valid up to the holding of the court case, is but six days short of the High Court case, one in which he and his father and mother have their judicial review hearing against the Minister of Home Affairs and the Chief Immigration Officer on the matter of the latter's refusal to extend the Mannings self-employed permits. Judge Musonda, having on 30 November admonished the Immigration Department for arrogance and disrespect of the High Court in that they have been issuing short-stay permits despite a judicial stay being in place, something which supersedes any action, may now wish to deal with a state body which ignores him.

The matter is not simply that Immigration require money to pay the Chinese contractor for his attempted repairs to the notorious Kent House, but that the executive and the civil service - paid for by tax payers and the ubiquitous donors - including my own fatherland, not least all the IT equipment supplied by USAID, appear to hold the High Court in contempt. I think, however, that in Judge Musonda they may have found their match.

Today came news of a divorcee on a work permit with a young child of 4, who, enrolled at a private school, and has been told that she should pay K500,000 for a study permit for the child.

NGOs in Zambia...

The Zambian State and civil society do not very often sing from the same hymn sheet - and increasingly so in Zambia. But this is not a particularly Zambian malady: government everywhere always grows increasingly intolerant of criticism, be it from the media or from that product of western pluralism, the non-government organization. And one cannot cavil at the man who is the citizen's protector - the Minister of Justice, saying that there needs to be a legal framework in place for the protection of society from unregulated NGOs - some of them undoubtedly not of charitable intent. The Charities Commission in England oversee many thousands of NGOs, making sure that they serve society. It is a difficult job, and they have a legal framework, based - as is ours, on English Common Law. But they also protect NGOs from the Government.

Zambian NGOs clearly see the NGO Bill as a move by Government to stifle opposition to government policies and their implementation through Acts and Statutory Instruments, and as an instrument to divide and conquer the myriad groupings of charitable intent which might coalesce into hard political opposition. The Bill does of course not much consider the protection of the NGO from a Government, one that does not hesitate to order the OP surveillance team to keep a close watch on it. As Joyce MacMillan remarks, the restrictive definition of an NGO would pose a threat to those of us working in human rights, social and economic justice - if you are trying to do charitable works in a rural area, something impossible to avoid.

What this bill would deliver is the establishment of a Government controlled quango , yet another one, to oversee the common herd. By all means let us have a commission, but one appointed - unlike the Citizens Economic Empowerment Commission, by civil society.

All free men and women need to restrict the powers of the elected government over them.

Justice being done in Zambia…

Today, I and my son, Brendan, attended a judicial review in a Lusaka High Court judge’s chambers, together with our attorney, Wynter Kabimba and a legal officer from the Attorney-General’s office. The matter of course has to do with the refusal of the Minister of Home Affairs to renew our self-employed permits - as is our right as holders of investment certificates under the Zambia Development Agency Act of 2006, giving as his reason that “Your business is not viable”, even though we are only into our third year and have already invested $1.6 million in our Luembe Conservancy – a partnership with our Luembe community, which includes the purchase of the hunting concessionaire in our conservancy, Mbeza Safaris.

The judge showed some irritation at a move by the Government who today presented an affidavit to have the review cancelled, having had time since we last appeared before the same judge on 4 September to present it. Our attorney then, given the fact that he had had no time to consult us, requested an adjournment. This was granted, the date being set for 30 January, 2008.

Then the matter of the Immigration Department’s refusal to understand that a stay of execution granted us on 4 September meant just that. But of course Immigration do not have much understanding or respect for the law, being filled with the hubris of their most powerful position to grant ‘life and death’ in Zambia to investors, be they illiterate Chinese labourers whom we encounter every time we attend Immigration, putting their crosses on the receipts for their entry permits, something denied most investors, even the husband of a chum of mine who has been on a work permit since 1975. There are four of us: my wife and son and I (all executive shareholders of the company holding an investment certificate), and my aged mother, so Immigration is quite happy to have us paying our $500 application fee for a temporary permit for a few weeks or months, even though they know the date of the judicial review and could easily issue us with a free report order. After all they should have some rudimentary understanding of the fact that a stay of execution granted by a High Court judge supercedes everything. I tried explaining this to the Immigration legal officer a few days ago. But he clearly thought he was an expert, denying that a stay meant any such thing, then turned on my wife who has been on a report order, saying that unless she paid for and received a temporary permit, he could arrest her for being in the country illegally. This was abuse in its most basic form, something you have to get used to when dealing with the Kent House brigade.

Our problems with Immigration were put to the judge, who stated that the Immigration legal officer was clearly being ‘disrespective to the court, and being arrogant…” With great restraint, he suggested that the Government legal officer have a word with the Immigration legal officer so that he would not be forced to come down on her with a court order!!

Today on the 31st October, we delivered a letter to The Chief Immigration Officer from our attorneys, which dealt with the question, writing as follows: "your (Immigration's) office has continued to act in disobedience of the judicial order granted to them (Mannings) by a competent court by issuing them at times with report orders for a period of 3 days or a Temporary permit for a period of a month. It was the view of the judge (Honourable Mr Justice Phillip Musonda) that your conduct constitutes an affront to the judicial order granted and M/s Mpamba as legal officer was expected to be well versed in court matters and advise your office accordingly. The judge directed that we implore you to obey the court order in order to facilitate a fair trial or in default to promptly report to the court for appropriate action. In this regard you may wish to refer to the case of Kabimba Vs the Attorney General and Lusaka City Council (1995/97) ZR, 152 for the definition of a stay and its effect in judicial review proceedings."

It was concluded by a receptive and polite senior hierarchy at Immigration - and by our attorney, that we should be issued Temporary Permits for three months - for which we would have to pay.

Foreigners flood Zambia reports ZNBC...

"The Immigrations Department says Zambia has recorded an unprecedented influx of foreign nationals due to investment prospects in the country. Chief Immigrations Officer, Ndiyoyi Mutiti said government's resolve to woo investment into the country has attracted many foreign nationals. Mrs. Mutiti also refuted allegations that more work permits are being issued to Chinese nationals than other foreigners. She said her department does not discriminate when issuing work permits. There has been reports that Chinese nationals are awarded more work permits than other foreigners."

Evidence of Zambia's Development and Immigration divide...

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.

A backdrop to the conservation battle in Zambia...

Nicholas F. Benton: China’s Resource Grab in Africa
Thursday, 25 October 2007
nfbenton@fcnp.com
My exclusive interview this week with a leading health official from the U.S. working on the AIDS crisis in Zambia, Africa, revealed conditions on the ground there almost too horrible to describe. There is no one critical problem there that is not interlinked with at least a half-dozen others and the conventional wisdom is that the best case scenario for a turnaround is at least 40 years away. But as far as the U.S. or any Western interests are concerned, that day will likely never come, since their current foreign policy vacuum in that region has left it to strident and persistent advances by the Chinese.

China is moving into the most ravaged areas of Africa with no humanitarian intent. On the contrary, the Chinese are capitalizing on the corruption at the top of governments there to trade financial payoffs for titles to massive chunks of land rich in untapped natural resources. The U.S. has turned its back to this process, from combined diplomatic, geopolitical and financial aid standpoints, because of its preoccupation with Iraq, the official said.

So the unspeakable human crisis there is not only a matter of concern for the people in that region, but for the wider global interests of the U.S., as well. The U.S. is stuck in the Iraq quagmire, having expended over $500 billion there to date, in an intended oil grab against perceived Russian and Chinese designs. Yet because of that, it is permitting access to even more vital resources in Africa and elsewhere to the same strategic competitors, over the poverty-stricken and disease-riddled rotting bodies of millions. It is impossible to imagine anything but a massive shift of focus by the U.S. and its allies to turn this regrettable inevitability around.

As it is now, up to 40 percent of the population of Zambia and surrounding countries is infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS. In Zambia, because of AIDS, the average life expectancy has dropped from 57 to 37 years of age in 20 years. One out of every two children born there today will die from AIDS-related factors before age 24. The death rate has created a massive displaced children problem and the local government has no interest in setting up orphanages. Instead, these AIDS orphans either move in with extended family members, live on the streets or are periodically rounded up into military camps.

These children are then either recruited into the exploding trend of child soldiers used as fodder in genocidal tribal wars, or into global human trafficking networks, shipped around the world and forced to become sex workers. The primary destinations of these networks are the large coastal urban centers of the U.S., the official said. Neither condoms nor AIDS drugs are working in arresting the spread of HIV in Zambia, she added, noting that cultural mores and a pervasive sense of despair make them ineffective. People living in conditions of extreme poverty have no energy to think beyond how they’re going to eat from day to day, and have no sense that they could work for a better future for themselves, or their children, in the long term. There is simply no notion of opportunities for a better life. Foreign aids organizations are treated with great suspicion, with Afro-Americans from the U.S. being considered “white.” The suspicions are fueled by local witch doctors whose prescriptions for virility encourage sexual practices by adults with young children too heinous to describe explicitly. Polygamy, without the formality of marriage or commitment, is the norm.

Corrupt local leaders hold aid efforts at bay, demanding huge bribes and diverting resources for their own uses. And there is simply no way the U.S. or any other outside nation can carry out programs in those countries without the blessings of those leaders. There appears to be no sweeping proposal for a “silver bullet” to fix all this. The only way to start, however, would be for the global community, most importantly the U.S., to begin fixing its gaze on what’s happening there, not only from a humanitarian but from a geo-strategic standpoint.

BAA corporate members at the African front...

As a tiny corporate member of Business Action for Africa (BAA) actually working in the field as an investor and holistic developer in an isolated part of Zambia where some 5,000 or so people live on about 25 cents a day - in a country where Government over the last 20 years only spent 16% of its national expenditure on agriculture, health, education and local government, and where corruption is kept alive by the very process of donor aid, any effort to encourage corporates on the Corporate Social Responsiblity (CSR) front is laudable (I am trying to recruit corporates to invest in conservancies, based on a trust structure, where they can get involved on the ground). However, not much is being done to support us and the 25 centers in the field, all the endless talking, thumb-shakes and cocktails being swilled in London far from the front. Corruption is a case in point. BAA makes much of its anti-corruption stance, even reporting to the G8 on what a fine job it has done in Zambia, yet I see nothing of them here, nor do they bother to reply to my letters asking what it is they actually do here – let alone for their own members, one of whom is the subject of surveillance and harassment by the state security and immigration apparatus simply because he stands up for the poor and opposes illegal land alienations. But are they listening?

The donors and the multi-nationals, the quangos and international organizations are simply in bed with the Government, massaging the slumbers of the poor. These be the waPajero, a new species. What to do?

Zambia’s Wildlife Authority Board Chairman threatens investor...

Since the Mulungushi Truce Conference of 3 January, 2007 (see Bush Telegraph) - a meeting of hunting concession Community Resource Boards, safari operators and ZAWA, called by Minister Pande of the Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Natural Resources in order to arrange a truce in the mounting criticism of Government's handling of the hunting and conservation industry, only one meeting of the industry has been held, and that without the Community Resource Boards being present. If Government does not confer with its private sector partners, with its community partners, if it ignores its problems, is unsympathetic, then criticism will appear in the media, particularly in the greatest liberating influence known to mankind, the Internet.

The letter from the Chairman of the Zambia Wildlife Authority is chilling: "...show cause why the Board of ZAWA should not deal with your menacing behaviour in a manner and style that should put the scourge to complete rest, decisively and once and for all." Sounds like a death threat.

My reply follows below:

3 October, 2007.

Walusiku Lisulo
Chairman of the ZAWA Board
Your ref: WL/JJ/889

Dear Sir,

Your letter of 26 September was received by hand today.

Your charge that I am posting articles on the internet which are libelous of ZAWA, its Board and the Director-General, requires investigation. As you are making a general accusation, I would presume that you have at hand those articles you consider libelous and could point them out to me. Once we have something with which to debate, I will gladly attend a meeting with the ZAWA Board, attended of course by my attorney. You, of course, already have details of my dissatisfaction with ZAWA and its Board and are, I am sure, ready to supply answers and explanations – something long sought after and promised by you at the Mulugushi Truce meeting in January of this year, and at two subsequent meetings.

I must state for the record, that although I am not required to attend any meeting on the command of ZAWA, or the full Board, I shall do so in the interests of the truth and of conservation. As a conservationist of long standing in Zambia, what I do is only in the interests of Zambia, its people and its wildlife. I am prepared to defend that.

Your sincerely,


I.P.A. Manning

cc. The DG. ZAWA.
cc. The Minister. MTENR.
cc. W.M. Kabimba & Associates

Zambia’s Wildlife Authority again rides rough shod over hunting safari investors…

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?

Zambia for the Zambians...

Sherry Thole, Chairman of the Implementation Committee of the USAID funded, Private Sector Reform Programme (PSRP) currently being hosted by the Zambia Business Forum, addressed its convention earlier this year, stating," Zambia for the Zambians!"

Zambia: Mwanawasa Assures Investors ?

The Times of Zambia (Ndola)
19 September 2007

Ndola
President Mwanawasa has assured investors wishing to come to Zambia of conducive policies and protection for their investment while upholding the interests of local people.

Comment by IM:
Amnesty International report that since the last election there is “widespread harassment and intimidation of people perceived to be critical of the government.”

Zambia whistleblower fall-out on the rural poor…

On the 20th August of 2007, senior representatives of the villagers living within the Luembe Chiefdom of Zambia, went to have their application endorsed for the formation of the Luembe Development and Caretaker Community Association. In order to do this, as required by the Registrar of Societies in Lusaka, they were compelled to obtain the signatures of the Nyimba District Council and the Nyimba Police. They duly obtained these, but, unusually – as it is not normally required, they were told by the Council to obtain the signature of the District Intelligence Officer in the Office of the President (OP), Nyimba branch. Then came the surprise, the officer, by the name of G.K. Mumba, stated that he knew that the group were connected with me, and that I had posted on my blogs the news that his office had recently gone in to Luembe to investigate our complaints of an elephant ivory and bushmeat poaching ring being operated by Zambia Wildlife Authority personnel. The village leaders were upbraided for having given secret information to someone who had then used it for ‘economic sabotage against Zambia’ by telling the world that the OP, as they are called, were investigating corruption. When asked how this was economic sabotage, Mumba replied that I had sought to dissuade hunting clients from coming to Zambia on safari by telling them of the poaching and other corruption.

The irony here is that as a result of being a whistleblower of the massive poaching ring operating in the district, I had also sought to publicize illegal land alienations of customary land and National Forest involving corrupt local forestry and wildlife officers, a corrupt Chief, corrupt elements within the Nyimba District Council, corrupt businessmen, and corruption in the Ministry of Lands. As a result, I had been accused by State House of plotting to overthrow the ruling MMD Government, of planning the destruction of the maize stocks of Zambia; accused by one of the Chiefs in the district of having committed game offences – though I had not ever hunted in his area; had my phones and emails tapped and my house placed under surveillance and, in my absence, my wife had suffered an invasion of the property by thugs; and then, in an act of sabotage which impacts both on our business, on the local community – as they share income from safaris, and on the good name of Zambia, had our client agents told that we were no good – immediate cancellations being the instant result. Whom is sabotaging whom, I ask.

Of course the Luembe community are awakening from their slumbers, now being aware of their rights under the law and the Constitution. Having got rid their chief for selling off their land, they found him reinstated without due customary process, and are oncemore fighting to have him ousted. Daily their wildlife resources and elephant are being plundered by the very people mandated to protect them. Not only has development aid passed them by, but they have to bear the yoke of malign interests seeking to further disenfranchise them. They now realize all this; hence their wish to form an Association, a perfectly normal democratic urge. But now the OP has put the spell on them.

Political scientist says Zambia Government is using foreign investors as scapegoats...

The Zambian academic and leading commentator on current affairs, Dr Neo Simutanyi, in his article 'Education and the Criminal Economy' says that the Department of Immigration, acting on instructions from above, are throwing some foreigners out of the country who are legally here; being used as scapegoats for government policy failures.

High Court Judge extends date of stay of execution...

Yesterday a High Court judge heard, inter partes, the question of the stay of execution granted to me against the decision of the Minister of Home Affairs not to renew my self-employed permit. It was agreed by the respondents' attorney that the stay be extended until 30 October, 2007, at which time the judicial review will be heard, the Minister and the Chief Immigration Officer being required to give good legal reasons for their action in refusing me that which Zambia is required to honour.

That a bona fide investor, holding an Investment Certificate, and supposedly protected by the Investment Act , should be so treated is an act of bad faith and does not send out a message to would-be investors to come to Zambia and trust the actions of politicians and a heavily politicised Immigration Department. As a corporate member of Business Action for Africa, I will be making a complaint. So far the Zambia Development Agency, required to protect an investor's rights, has failed to act.

Zambia Development Agency speak...

Cartoon from The Oldie magazine.

Zambia High Court Action by I.P.A. Manning against the Minister of Home Affairs etc...

A letter to the IMF...I.P.A. Manning

The continued IMF propping up of Zambia simply perpetuates dependency, corruption and Zambia's deepening dysfunctional state.

As someone working here in the trenches on and off since 1963, I, like
many old Africa hands, are in despair. Corruption here is rampant and
worsening,with ever greater amounts of money being stolen. You talk
of poverty reduction while only 16% of national expenditure has gone
over the last two decades on the very things needed to alleviate poverty:
agriculture, health, education, and district councils. You talk of
stimulating investment while small investors, the ones who create jobs
and develop societies, are being shown the door, their self-employed
work permits denied, in total contempt of their investment
certificates and the Investment Act which underpins them. The rape of
the environment continues apace with customary communities
increasingly disenfranchised, the biodiversity being pillaged, with
ever increasing centralization of powers in an inept and clueless
administration. Since the infamous Watershed speech of June, 1975,
this country rid itself of virtually all non-Zambian civil servants, and
continues, in defiance of international standards, to ignore the rights
of its non-Zambian residents to a place in Zambian society, a place
where speaking out against corruption and the illegal alienation of
land should not be taken as sedition and an attack on state security.
Zambia is now openly anti-western, anti-globalization, the producer
of laws and bills and statutory instruments which infringe on civil
liberties, on our rights and on the rights of the rural poor in
particular, yet it knows that its palm will continue to be greased by
donors who have lost all touch with reality as they jet about the
world greasing up indigenous magnificent failures. And for the IMF
to even seriously discuss yet another National Development Plan,
shows how bankrupt the IMF and World Bank ideas bank has become.

What we need is less aid, more open investment, immigration, smart-
partnerships, less planning and the propping up of corrupt
departments, the financing of deeply flawed consultancy reports.
Perhaps you should visit one of our far-flung rural areas so that you
may inspect land untouched - except by the plunderers, since the
coming of Livingstone in 1868. Certainly you will be hard pressed to
see where all the money you have given - in some two dozen or so IMF
bail-outs, has gone.

Suljani comments on the CEE Act, Manning replies...

Suljani, on http://ipamanning.blogspot.com (now changed), made comments on my article on the CEE Act (see article on this blog)
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Mr Manning, I just want to respond to your comments and correct some of your history about Zambia.

I am the great grandson of Donald Siwale who was amongst the group of Zambians that began the first organised struggle against colonial rule in 1912. They formed what was called the Mwenzo Welfare Association with David Kaunda (father to Kenneth Kaunda), Peter Sinkala and others. I was fortunate enough to talk to my great grandfather before he died in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I was a young boy but I remember he used to talk about what he called "Colour Bar" that was practiced by the Colonial Administration before independence. In other words, there were separate inferior schools and other public services for blacks, indians and coloureds whereas the best schools and public services were the reserved for whites. Kabulonga for instance was a white only school in the pre indepdendence era. Kenneth Kaunda became a vegetarian initially in protest to blacks having to be served meat out of the back and white in the front.There was also the "Hut Tax" which was introduced to force blacks off the land so that they would be forced to migrate to the Copperbelt to provide cheap labour for the mines. Blacks who refused to pay the Hut Tax had their homes burned and were forced off their land.

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Manning: The struggle against colonial rule in 1912, as you put it, was more the embryonic beginnings of national identity rather than a struggle against some terrible invader. The BSA Company had, after all, just recently put down the slave trade and released villagers from stockaded villages unconnected by paths. The state of the few people living in what is now Zambia in those times was terrible indeed, not helped by the colonial invasions of the Mokololo under Sebituane and the Ngoni under Mpezeni; colonialism being as old as man itself, and certainly not something peculiarly European. Without the coming of European enlightenment to Zambia, who knows what state society would be in here. I think we British still thank the Romans for enlightening us and drawing us out of our primitive state. There certainly was a colour bar here, based more on class issues than race. The hut tax was introduced in order to persuade villagers, who had never before taken jobs, to work. Roads and railways needed to be built. All unfortunate of course, but only if you would like Zambians to have remained as pure subsistence villagers, without education and development. There were refusals to pay hut tax, and discipline was imposed, undoubtedly at times harsh; such is progress which the history of all nations exhibit. But the British Administration was one of the most enlghtened the world has seen. The Zambia law is British law, for which we all should be thankful.
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Suljani: Further, the mineral wealth that was obtained from the copper mines right up to indepndence went straight to the British Treasury. Please tell me when and where the British compensated the Zambian people for the mineral wealth they expropriated for the better part of 100 years from Zambia.
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Manning: This is an old canard put about by early politicians, particularly Kenneth. The British SA. Co. who introduced the wheel here, had a royal charter, and was not part of the Imperial Government. What mining activities were in place at the time of the building of the railway line at the start of the 20th Century? Kansanshi and the bare beginnings of others. That and other development was paid for by the Company until 1922. If you care to go into the records you will see that Britain made no money from North-Western Rhodesia, North-Eastern Rhodesia or Northern Rhodesia. I might just as well ask you where our compensation is for putting down the slave trade, building the railway, the telegraph line, putting in most of the infrastructure as exists at present in the country, let alone fighting two World Wars (with the help of a number of Northern Rhodesians of all colours), which if lost, would have not enabled you to enjoy the present freedoms now in existence.
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Suljani: This applies to many African countries where the colonial situation existed.

So I really do not understand why it should cause such offence to you when the indeginous people of Zambia (or put bluntly, the Black people) want a stake in their motherland. You go to England, to Germany, to Sweden, to Norway, to Finland... the indeginous people of those countries control something like 70-80% of their economy. Look at the outcry all over Europe over a few thousand immigrants coming in from Africa and Asia to take lowly paying jobs. What would happen if African and Asian immigrants dominated 80 - 90% of the economy in the UK, Germany or France when just having living in the same neighbourhood causes public outcry.
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Manning: I take offence because the history of the BEE in South Africa is that it has not benefitted the poor at all, merely the few having close ties with the ruling hierarchy; and the NEPAD peer review process, carried out by indigenous leaders of Africa, stated this clearly in their peer review report of South Africa. We all want the people of Zambia to have a stake in the country, but you do that by ushering in investment, not as is the case for medium to small investors, discouraging it. Western countries rely on immgration for growth. However, immigration purely by people without technical know-how creates more problems than solutions. But when immigrants such as the Ugandan Asians, expelled by Amin - for just such reasons as you seem to favour, came to Britain, the beneficial effect on the economy was considerable.
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Suljani: Please Mr Manning, we are a new and enlightened generation of Zambians and Africans. We have lived and been educated in the West. We appreciate that in a global village their has to be bilateral and multilateral cooperation in business but that cooperation must involve major participation of the local people.
We would be foolish to think otherwise. China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong have all developed by ensuring major participation of their local people in the economy (in other words CITIZENS ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT). Why then do you condem it when South Africa does and Zambia rather late emulates this.
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Manning: I can only repeat, the NEPAD Peer Review for South Africa condemmed the BEE Act, crime and corruption as posing the greatest threat to that country. Legislating for greater participation of local people in the economy, particularly if racially based, is both counter productive and offensive. Rather the development of smart partnership, as recentlty called for by the President, and as I have been advocating for years, is the way forward. Many Zambians already have businesses which cannot prosper because of the lack of technical knowledge and capital. A Government policy which does not encourage investment will result in just such a situation as pertains here now. After all you can go to my country, be resident, and obtain citizenship after five years. Let a foreigner try that here. And ask your M.P. to pose the following question in the National Assembly: "How many of those holding investment certificates, and protected under the Investment Development Agency Act of 1996 - and the now repealed Investment Act, have had their self-employed permits denied by the Ministry of Home Affairs; and how many without investment certificates but running successful businesses, have been so denied". Let me know what you discover. However, it will merely show that Zambians do follow the policy of Zambia for the Zambians; all very well were you to eschew the 40% or so we have been pumping into your budget since your Independence. You can't have it both ways, as the Bishop said to the actress.
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COMMENT EX-AFRICA: Well said. Mr Suljani appears to suffer from acute myopia as well as
ignorance! Maybe he should take a closer look at what the "Yellow"
colonialists are up to in the mining, construction and retailing industries
and the impact this has on Zambians and employment today. I saw a truck
full of frozen Chinese in Kabulonga heading to a building site the other
day in early am and not a single black man in their midst. I wondered what
had happened to CEE!