My Perspective On The Second Session Of The 11th National Assembly

By Paul Shalala

It is the first session of parliament in the recent past which has presided over major policy changes in the governance of the nation.

The second session of the Eleventh National Assembly which convened on 21st September 2012, is expected to adjourn on Friday 19^th July 2013.

A parliamentary session is usually organised in three phases which include the budget phase, the legislation phase and the committee phase

During the budget phase held between September and December last year, the 2013 National Budget was presented and adopted.

In the legislation phase held between February and March 2013, several bills were presented and adopted.

And in the current committee phase which is likely to adjourn tomorrow, 20 parliamentary committees have reported to the house and questions for oral answer sessions have also been a daily feature.

By the time it adjourns, this session of parliament would have overseen a transition period for policies from the previous ones initiated by the MMD to those proposed and implemented  by the Patriotic Front.

Among the 17 Bills passed by this session of parliament include five controversial and radical ones that steered huge debate and reactions from stakeholders.

One of these is the Re-Denomination of Currency Bill of 2012 which changed the kwacha notes and re-introduced coins.

Another is the Bank of Zambia Amendment Bill of 2013 which prompts investors to bring back proceeds from mineral sales abroad.

For decades, Zambians had complained that proceeds from mineral sales were being kept abroad and never benefited the nation.

Another thorny issue that brought emotions in Parliament was the issue of subsidies.

Despite not having been tabled in the house, the removal of fuel and maize subsidies was a hotly contested for issue on the floor of the house.

On most Fridays during the Vice President's Question Time, the issue of subsidies was being raised by opposition members of parliament who argued that the move would worsen hunger in the nation.

This debate later moved a step further when MMD Solwezi Central Member of Parliament Lucky Mulusa moved a private members motion to re-instate the subsidies last week.

The motion was heavily debated and took long to conclude but when the vote was cast, the ruling party polled 70 votes against the 52 votes for the opposition.

And that is how the motion on re-introducing subsidies was lost.

Despite this loss by the opposition, the second session of the Eleventh National Assembly is also credited for having passed two opposition motions.

Lubansenshi Independent Member of Parliament Patrick Mucheleka successfully moved a motion to refocus the Rural Development Policy in October last year.

The policy was to refocus government's approach towards poverty alleviation and the house approved it.

Another opposition motion which was passed by the house was one on accelerating the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals which was moved by UPND Bweengwa Member of Parliament Highvie Hamududu last week.

In total, parliament in the current session received 20 committee reports which include the two highly contested ones from the Public Accounts Committee.

However, this session of parliament did not discuss the hugely anticipated Freedom of Information Bill (FOI) which the Patriotic front government promised to bring back to the house in June this year.

FOI has since been renamed as the Access to Information Bill (ATI).

A week ago, Vice President Dr Guy Scott informed the house that the Bill is expected to be presented in parliament in its next sitting as it was still undergoing scrutiny in the committee on legislation.

Another important feature that was observed in the current sitting of parliament was the increase in the resignation of opposition lawmakers to join the ruling Patriotic Front.

These resignations have caused numerous by-elections which have mostly been won by the PF which has a slim majority in the house.

In the last one year, Parliament has also seen a new trend where UPND members of parliament have for the first time in history joined government and crossed from the left side of the Speaker to the right side which hosts the executive.

This has to some extent changed the balance of power in the house in favour of PF in as far as voting is concerned.

As parliament adjourns tomorrow, eight seats remain vacant following resignations by the incumbent and nullifications of seats by the courts of law.

These include Chipata Central, Kafulafuta, Mkushi North, Solwezi East, Mkaika, Mulobezi, Malambo and Petauke Central.

Eight new members of parliament from these constituencies are expected to be elected and sworn in in the next sitting of parliament which is expected to convene in September.

New Tax Can Increase Zambia’s Revenue Collection

By Paul Shalala in Pretoria, South Africa

A 36 member country pan-African tax administration body has observed that the best way of increasing Zambia’s tax base is to introduce a new presumptive tax which can capture millions of Zambians in the informal sector.

African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) Executive Secretary Logan Wort says introducing a presumptive tax will ensure that even players in the informal sector can now start paying tax to improve Zambia’s revenue collection and relieve the burden on the few tax payers in the formal sector.

Mr Wort says the presumptive tax can be levied on each respective business depending on its annual turnover.

He said this kind of tax can be best collected using a mobile phone as has been the case in Kenya where it has been effectively implemented.

Mr Wort said this in the South African Pretoria on Wednesday when he addressed a group of ten journalists from across Africa who are in South Africa on a one week Reuters training in Advanced Financial and Governance Reporting.

Meanwhile, Mr Wort says there is need for African tax administrators to adopt electronic systems of collecting tax in order to avoid corruption.

He said in countries where technology had been employed to collect tax, there is less contact between people and corruption is minimized.

Of the 13 million Zambians, only about 500, 000 are said to be paying tax, leaving millions of potential tax payers out of the tax band.

Zambia was the first country to have ratified the African Tax Administration Forum’s Agreement three years ago ahead of the organisation’s host country South Africa and other African countries.

Since inception , ATAF has carried out research on tax administration on the continent and is advising the thirty six member countries on the best practices of tax administration.

Final Draft Constitution Is Possible By 30 June 2013

By Paul Shalala

The Technical Committee on Drafting the Republican Constitution can produce the final draft constitution by 30 June, 2013 as per their own set deadline. This is very possible because they have all the human resource, the brains, financial resources, time and most of all, they have the necessary resolutions from various stakeholders to guide them in the drafting process.

There is no excuse which can be used to justify their request to extend the process by another six months to December 2013.

In the past two years, I have closely followed and reported on every step of this current constitution making process. As a journalist specially trained in Germany to report on politics and governance issues, I have taken the constitution making personal project. So far, I know everything about this business of constitution making process and not even members of the Technical Committee can lie to me that they need six more months to draft the articles of the constitution because the most difficult parts of this process have already passed.

I have travelled this country doing stories on the constitution and making sure that every voice of a well-meaning Zambian is heard in this process which is likely to change the course of the nation.

Why six months extension is unjustified

At the moment, the Technical Committee has resolutions from District Consultative Fora, Provincial Conventions, the Sector Groups Convention, the National Convention and from international constitutional experts.

All these resolutions are the basis on which the committee is supposed to base its contents for the final draft constitution.

Of all the consultative fora, the most recent was the National Convention which was held in late April this year and its resolutions are being held in soft copy by the Technical Committee.

Between April and 30^th June is a two months period in which the Technical Committee is supposed to prepare the draft constitution. Considering that the resolutions are in soft copy, it is easy for the committee to edit them and prepare a document based on how stakeholders chose and voted on articles to have in their supreme law of the land.

This is not a job which can take two months, it can only take a period of a few weeks because the articles were already voted for by the people of Zambia through the various consultative fora. The committee’s job therefore at this stage is just to consolidate views from the people as contained in the rapporteur’s reports and consolidated resolutions.

With this background, I still argue that the two weeks remaining before the Technical Committee’s self imposed deadline of handing over document to President Michael Sata by June 30, 2013 is possible. There is ample time to finalise this document and the Zambian people are highly expectant of this long overdue document.

How far is the drafting process?

Last month, the Technical Committee split itself in working groups according to the different parts of the constitution in order to deliberate on specific articles and bring back resolutions to the plenary for formal adoption of articles. This process was supposed to take a few weeks before the document was to be handed over to the drafters in late May for preparation of the final draft constitution.

I personally covered a session of the plenary where members of the Technical Committee was adopting articles and the process seemed smooth.

With the passing of time, the public was informed that the committee had asked for a six months extension to complete the process. The question that begs an answer is what is delaying the process when all the documents are already available?

Cost

Justice Minister Wynter Kabimba on 11 June, 2013 told journalists at a press briefing that the current constitution making process had gobbled Kr100 million. This is an amount of money which was spent on getting views from the Zambian people. Through its request for a six months extension, the Technical

Committee hoped to use another Kr44 million through a supplementary budget. To be realistic, this is too much money to fund a simple activity that can be done within the shortest period of time. Mr Kabimba is justified to have described this request as “unreasonable and outrageous” because most stakeholders want this process to come to an end so that the way forward in this current constitution making process can be known.

Conclusion

As a matter of urgency, the Technical Committee must double its efforts and produce the final draft constitution by 30 June. Now that government has rejected their request for an extension, the committee has no option but to produce the document whose contents are already there.

Obama-Romney Final Debate and the 6 November Elections

By Paul Shalala

When Democrat Barack Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney sat down for their last debate on Tuesday morning before they face-off in the November 6 Presidential elections, many pundits wondered who would take the credit in the debate. In the two previous debates, Romney won the first one and the US President snatched the second one.

The third one was very divisive as it dealt with foreign policy. On the table were issues such as China, Iran, Afghanistan and Military spending. President Obama was coming to this debate with an upper hand because he had led the world's most powerful nation for the previous four years and he had dealt with most of the world's most difficult diplomatic engagements. These include Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Al Qaeda, Climate Change, Guantanamo, Africa and many others.

In terms of credentials, the US president was joining the debate with a track record of foreign policy. His republican challenger was entering the debate without any track record at all apart from his recent visit to the UK and Israel which some how was abit of a failure after he was reported to have failed to properly address UK opposition Labour Party leader Ed Miliband and ended up calling him "Mr Leader." This is why during the debate, Romney kept on agreeing with Obama on almost all of the US president's foreign policy decisions.

As commander-in-chief, Obama also had another advantage of having first hand information on US military engagements worldwide. It is this privilege that Romney didn't have, leading him to embarass himself when he wanted to lie that the US Navy has more ships today than it had in 1916, a point that Obama later clarified as being the opposite.

All in all, Obama has won the third debate on foreign policy. These debates have a considerable impact on the way US voters choose their presidents due to the opportunity the platform offers in terms of policy proposals. From today on wards, US presidential candidates are expected to criss cross the country and campaign in the so-called "swing states" like Ohio and Florida which usually decide the occupant of the White House.

However, there are other US presidential candidates aside of Romney and Obama. These are usually not covered by the mainstream media but they eventually run for the White House.

MUFUMBWE BY-ELECTION: Parties, Statistics and Geo-Politics

By Paul Shalala

Mufumbwe is one of the most famous constituencies in Zambia. Unfortunately the area's popularity is not for good reasons, its actually for bad reasons. Mufumbwe shot to prominence in April 2010 when at the height of campaigns for a parliamentary by-election, violence engulfed the whole constituency as political cadres fought in bloody battles which resulted in heavy casualties on either side. Then Police Chief Francis Kabonde was one of the people caught up in the violence. He was shown on TV running away from cadres in Mufumbwe when his base was invaded by cadres.

As voters will be trooping into various polling stations to vote for their new parliamentarian on 8 November 2012, the fear of violence will be high on their minds as its not too long ago when the previous by-election was held.

Why the by-election?
A few months ago, opposition MMD expelled its Mufumbwe MP Stephen Masumba for gross misconduct. This action came after Masumba accepted a presidential appointment in the Patriotic Front government as a
Deputy Minister He further campaigned heavily for the ruling party and delivered a ward in his constituency during by-elections held in July this year. Masumba appealed his expulsion to the courts but the MMD
won the case hence the by-election.

Statistics
Mufumbwe is a relatively rural constituency. The constituency has 15 wards with a total of 27, 027 voters. According to the latest voters register, Mufumbwe has more women voters than men. In terms of representation among political parties, the MMD and UPND both have 7 councillors each while the PF has one councillor. On 11 October 2012, three candidates from the MMD, PF and UNIP successfully filed in their nominations to contest the vacant Mufumbwe parliamentary seat.

Geo-Politics
Mufumbwe is one of the 12 constituencies in North-Western Province. This is a region that is historically a fluid province that usually votes as a block. Voters in this area change their voting pattern from one election to another. At the moment, MMD has 8 seats, UPND has 3 and Mufumbwe (which was MMD) is the 12th seat which is currently vacant.

Strength of Parties

MMD
MMD is coming into this November by-election as a party that has held the seat since the 20 September 2011 general elections. The party has declared that it will contest the seat whether its alliance partner
UPND also fields a candidate or not. It will campaign on a promise of discipline and try hard to get back the seat. MMD is not new to Mufumbwe, it held the seat for many years and voters in the area know it very well. The party will boast a lot of the developmental projects the party brought to the region when it was in power, developments such as mines.

PF
The Patriotic Front comes into the by-election with memories of its fresh victory in Shukwe ward of Mufumbwe. PF snatched Shukwe ward from MMD 3 months ago. The PF will also use its strength of incumbency to scoop Mufumbwe which will be its first ever seat in North-Western Province. Just like it won its first ever seat in Eastern Province through a by-election, PF will also try to win Mufumbwe and announce
its grand entry into the province. PF will count on its candidate Stephen Masumba, the immediate past MP to scoop the seat. Added to that, the PF also has Elliot Kamondo, the man who won the seat in 2010
and lost it last year to Masumba by 59 votes. According to some PF insiders, the two are likely to form a deadly campaign squad to ensure an easy victory for the ruling party.

Other Parties

UNIP
The former ruling party UNIP is one of those courageous political parties that field candidates in almost all by-elections. Despite having a nationwide appeal, UNIP has declined and only has 3 councillors countrywide and no MP in Parliament. It has contested Mufumbwe to try and bring back its fortunes which keep declining everytime its candidates are on the ballots.

UPND
UPND is not contesting the seat, it has decided to back its alliance partner MMD. UPND shocked many when it snatched Mufumbwe in April 2010 from MMD in a by-election that was necessitated by the death of area MMD MP Misheck Bonshe who was also Home Affairs Deputy Minister. The party held the seat from 2010 till 2011 when Elliot Kamondo was beaten by MMD's Stephen Masumba through a difference of only 59 votes. Therefore, UPND still stands a chance if it contests.NAREP is another party that has a youthful appeal but has so far failed to send any of its candidates into an elected body. It may contest to get its first ever seat in parliament since its establishment in April 2010.

Campaign issues
Infrastructure development is likely to top the campaign speeches. Like any other rural constituency, Mufumbwe lacks good roads, good schools and health facilities. Both the ruling and opposition parties
are likely to use the campaign trail to emphasise the need for good infrastructure. Peace is another issue that is likely to feature highly in the campaign. Coming from the background of violence two years ago, politicians are likely to call for peace and ensure a smooth campaign.

Who wins?
Only the people of Mufumbwe will decide. Violence or no violence, apathy or no apathy, the verdict will be passed and a new lawmaker will enter Manda Hill courtesy of the votes from Mufumbwe.

Conclusion
Mufumbwe is likely to be heavily contested due to its strategic position in the North-Western Province. We are likely to see big guns from all contesting political parties setting base in the area to heavily campaign for their respective candidates. We are also likely to hear allegations of malpractices but what most Zambians wouldn't want to see is the repeat of the 2010 violence where then Police Chief Francis Kabonde was captured on TV hiding in a room from cadres who invaded the area where he was sheltering.

HH’S UPND: Recent Defections and 2016

By Paul Shalala

In Zambia, being aligned with the ruling party or the elite is the desire of many. This status is usually attained when citizens join the ruling party, befriend those in government or offer favours to those in the corridors of power.

In every general election the country has had since it reverted back to multi-party politics in 1991, politicians have been crossing from one party to the other in search of acceptance, security, change of status and opportunities.

In the first five months following the triumph of the Patriotic Front (PF) in the September 2011 General Elections, various politicians both from the former ruling Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) and other political parties left their respective parties to join the PF. Some of those defecting included senior MMD leaders like Goodward Mulubwa who was the party’s National Treasurer and others from the party’s provincial executives who joined the now ruling party which they had fought tooth and nail and successfully beat in the past 10 years till it dislodged them in 2011.

But in the last three months, the defections seem to have taken a different direction. This time politicians are leaving the MMD and joining the opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) which despite being smaller in size and having fewer numbers of members of parliament than MMD, has swallowed many influential defectors. Three time presidential elections loser Hakainde Hichilema has been at the core of these defections as he hosts press briefings to welcome these new members.

One reason that can be cited for politicians ditching the MMD is the fact that some Zambians do not usually like to associate themselves with a losing party. Just like UNIP which lost elections in 1991, MMD is suffering defections due to its loss of elections last year. Most people who have left MMD are claiming that the party is divided hence its future being bleak.

Despite the MMD and UPND being in a loose and unofficial alliance both in parliament and on the campaign trail, defectors have continued exiting the former ruling party and spilling filth on it when joining the UPND. In recent months, a number of prominent MMD big wigs have left the embattled party to join Hichilema’s UPND.

Edwin Lifwekelo, Edward Mumbi, William Banda and ‘popular’ comedian Thomas Sipalo (Diffikkoti) are some of the eminent figures who have joined the rank and file of Hichilema’s organisation whose motto is to move Zambia forward. Some of these have even been offered senior party positions.  

But why are all sorts of people now flocking to UPND? Why are former MMD members being embraced in UPND, a party they called all sorts of names in the past decade? And why is UPND accepting them and further offering party positions to some of them? The following passages will try to bring out the possible reasons why the status quo is like this.

Quantity

Like any other game, politics has its own rules. One of these rules is numbers. In politics, the more the numbers you have, the more votes you have and the more power you acquire. It is this premise which to some extent has led UPND to accept all those defecting from the MMD despite some of them being controversial figures.  UPND is convinced that by accepting everyone who knocks at its Rhodespark secretariat for membership cards, it will grow a mass movement which will help it wrestle power from the PF’s ‘Donchi Kubeba’ machine in 2016 when the next general elections are held.

Project a certain image and win elections

By holding press briefings to unveil ‘big fish’ who defect from other parties to join UPND, the opposition party is very much convinced that it’s a better strategy to win hearts and minds of voters and make them believe that UPND is the only alternative to the ruling PF. This image being projected by the UPND does not go unchallenged because some of the people unveiled by party president Hichilema at his numerous press briefings are controversial politicians who still have issues of credibility in people’s minds.

Greener pastures, opportunism and convenience

It has been said by many that most people who defect in Zambia are opportunists. Some politicians are known to have moved from one party to the other without regard for the ideologies of the political parties they are joining. For example, William Banda was in UNIP, he joined MMD where he served as Lusaka Province Chairman before resigning early this year to join UPND. Despite UNIP being socialist in nature, he left it and joined UPND and MMD which are capitalist in nature. Another example is that of Edward Mumbi who served as Secretary General of the PF, a seemingly socialist-inclined party. Mumbi later joined capitalist MMD and now he is in UPND. Other examples include Edwin Lifwekelo and others who have crossed parties in search of greener pastures, opportunism and convenience. Lifwekelo, who was an outspoken and pro-MMD ‘civil society’ activist, is now deputy spokesperson of the UPND following his defection earlier this year. All these defections seem not to be based on policy or principles but opportunism or convenience because one can clearly see that the defectors leave a party with a totally opposite ideology to the other they later join.

Quality and credibility

When people defect to another party, they are expected to bring value to that party. This is exactly what many UPND leaders expect to get from their allies who are joining them. However, the credibility of some of the defectors is questionable. Their quality too is questionable as some of them have well documented backgrounds which do not earn them respect in society. Therefore, their credibility is questionable. Some are known to be violent even when they talk about peace in society.

Towards 2016 Elections

Despite the next general elections being four years and a month away, the ground is already being set for a showdown. For the UPND, defections are one of the signs that it is preparing for the next polls. However, defections on their own are not enough to warrant an outright victory. Some people are known to have defected today and tomorrow they are back to their former party. The case of Paul Monga is one such example which I can cite, the man has been in and out of UPND for at least three times. In the 2011 general elections, many politicians from the PF defected to the MMD but the then ruling party ended up losing. Therefore, Hichilema and UPND shouldn’t bank too much on the defections. They should campaign not only in the media but also on the grassroots.

Conclusion

Defections or no defections, UPND has a high chance of giving a good run to the PF in 2016. However, Hichilema and his lieutenants should strictly scrutinize all those joining them as defectors. It is true that HH needs these numbers to win as president after losing the past three presidential elections but he needs to ensure that none of these people damage his image to the voters. Appointing some of the controversial defectors to the opposition party’s National Management Committee can have a negative impact on the way his party may perform in 2016. Hichilema’s warm reception to controversial characters like William Banda may have a negative impact on the way people look at his credentials on the rule of law and respect for divergent views due to the man’s history of violence. Just like the example seen in 2011, defections don’t usually count in general elections. Their effect is usually minimal which means the UPND should not spend more time celebrating the defections but spend more time organizing the party on the grassroots.