Mining and Employment

I love the debates that comes out of mining sector. But most of it is actually lack of understanding of several issues. That is where the problem is.

Mining essentially involves depleting of natural resources and degradation of the environment when extracting the needed resource from the ground. The official definition will go as: mining means extracting minerals from the earth. So whatever decision one has to make about mining, it should address the depleted resources, the negative externalities of that depletion, the cost on environment (wont include this in externality), the positive externalities (such as job creation, revenue for tax collectors, etc), etc

Now a rational decision on this issue will have to weigh the costs and benefits before any decision to allow mining to take place anywhere. For Zambia and other developing countries, I think the costs and benefits should also take into account the costs of collecting that revenue in the wake of tax avoidance and tax evasion. It certainly wont pay, to include revenue which no one will ever collect!

So can we sum all the costs and then the benefits? Will any mining project pass that test? Frankly, I think mining in this country has more costs than benefits since the privatization jump on our roofs. We have seen more depletion and rarely few positive outcomes! Even Switzerland makes more tax revenue from our mines that we do. I think we are lost in the "employment" fight we don't see the real costs to this nation. If our aim was to really get the maximum benefit from mining, a lot of things would be done differently. Since that is not the aim, but employment, our aims fall short of any benefits. Let me explain.

Mining Efficiency

For this country and indeed any country to achieve mining efficiency, that is, extract the minerals at least cost and sell them at high price, we need to look at the costs of that extraction. Costs are many and include, royalties, labour, fuel, rentals, licenses, etc. A reduction in one of those elements will reduce the cost of extraction and surely makes for a good bargain.

However, the country imposes a cost on the mines through demand not to lay off workers. Hallo! We want efficiency, so the mining company would really do good in that area if they reduced the work force and instead invest in capital equipment that would extract the minerals cheaply compared with a man with a pick! Are we then saying we can do with the inefficiency in the mining sector as long as the people are employed? I have heard people say, they would rather have that since mines "cheat" in taxes. My view is different, if we need to do something, we must do it the best way we can. If we can't do that, we should as well close the mines and find something else to do. Mining companies may actually be motivated to "cheat" on the basis of balancing their books since we have bloated there work force. Now if we offer no conditions to them, we will have a better bargaining stand since all mining companies need to do is carry out an efficient operation.

My take on the mining would actually be to run them on a whole new platform that will force efficiency and productivity in the country. Many compare with Chile. This is a wrong comparison. They don't even need value addition as it is useless for them. Our case if different. We own less in the mines compared to 50% of which they own. Therefore, our aim should be to get more from these mines in form of value addition. The country will get more from the value added compared to exporting of raw minerals. If the companies want to export the raw minerals, we control it through taxes. Anyone exporting should pay export tax! Right now, there is no motivation to add value to the copper that we export. Tax revenue has also eluded the country. Meaning we are losing out on both fronts!

What Value Addition?

The value addition I talked about, still remains. It is here.

The setting up of "support industries" around the mining sector will bring in better rewards, especially if we stop the export and tax leakage in the current exports of the mining sector.

Environment Stance

There exist a principle in environment which states that: Polluter pays principle. This simply means whoever will bring about harm to the environment will have to clean it up and pay for all the costs related to that pollution.

So our position for someone to setup a mine in a lake is simple, how then will that person clean up the environment. When that issue has been clearly sorted out, we move now to the other costs, then look at the revenue one will make and address the positive externalities on that end. 

But what shocks me, is people talking about the employment that will be created by the mine and ignoring the cost of that environment! We are doing it wrong, lets start from the cost aspects and only move to looking at the employment when the cleaning up of the environment has been addressed. What value is a mine employing 2000 workers and then a million die from environmental degradation? Are we really so into making jobs available that we will even jeopardize our environment to get people employed?

What are our cost - benefit analysis on this issue? Environmental issues are one thing that should come first, everything else second. What villagers are there who would cost the country's environment to be employed. What genuine revenue will come out of this.

Mining Should Not Be For Employment

Mining sector should therefore not be looked at as an employment engine. It is a resource sector whose returns should be pumped into the economy, clean up the mess it generates and ensure these returns are pumped back into high growth sectors of the economy.

The "support industries" should then be the area of focus for employment. These will employ more and will have great efficiency in the mining sector. The people will benefit more from this than imposition of employees on the mines. It is a modern world which uses modern technology, the mines are not any different. If they can't contribute to tax revenues, do we really need them to operate in this country?

SI 32 of 2013

Sorry I have been out of touch on serious assignments. But I think we need to have some space for one of the few happenings in the economy of Zambia - Statutory Instrument no. 32 of 2013.

I will have to do a blog on this but you should look at it from and see what it has for you. I know there are a lot of lies about it and some dreams too. I will offer my opinion as soon as I have time. It can be found here.

Mining Taxation - What Are We Doing About It?

Many economists in Zambia right now call for windfall tax for the mines in order to make mines contribute their fair share of taxes. Basically the idea is that mining is receiving a lot of returns as the copper prices are high. We should therefore setup a mining tax regime that will be able to capture that "extra" profit that the mines are getting. Its a fair argument and one that makes sense when you look at it. Every work pays taxes, Zambia being a small economy, the taxes needed to provide services are smaller. Therefore the profits that the mines make in a day would nicely cover all the expenses.

However, we must never live believing the mine owners are interested in the wellbeing of Zambians. If they did, the economy of Zambia right now would be far better than were it is right now. Only a fraction of what they get would change everything. But its that greedy and selfishness of mine owners that make the windfall tax a useless path for me. I know a lot of economists would be shocked to hear that. But I have points that need to be taken into consideration before you judge me.

Stealing Benefits Them

Mine owners will do everything they can to steal every little Ngwee they can from Zambia and proudly send it to the west without a problem. Switzerland makes more money from mining of copper than Zambia. Do the Swiss people have windfall tax?

These people will proudly contribute to the tax in Switzerland than Zambia where the copper comes from. All sorts of transfer pricing and complex avoidance of tax methods are employed to make sure they pay nothing to Zambia and pay a lot more to Europe.

The point is, its not the windfall that will make someone eager to steal wealth from our mines to contribute a fair share. They aim at stealing and having a windfall tax when there is a complex plan of transfer pricing, will bring little to the treasury in any case.

Most mines "sell" the produce at "arms length" to their sister companies. Now if that was true, Zambia would raise money tax revenue from copper that Switzerland. Since it isn't, there is a proper case to assume the "arms length" being talked about does not exist. If there was even an ounce of honest in mining companies, the returns from copper would be in levels that we would not complain about.

Government Has Sovereign Right to Tax 

We have to remember for this discussion that a government has the sovereign right to tax. Government is the only power that can tax or not. It has control on what it can tax and how it can tax it."

Allison Christians

"Tax policy creates and reflects relationships between the market, the citizen, and the state. As a result, traditional tax policy discourse centers around the premise that decisions about taxation should be made exclusively within nations, independent of outside concern and interference."

What we need to add to that is that, tax avoidance has outside interference and its that outside force that make certain decisions irrelevant. Windfall tax being one of them. It is easier to avoid the complexity of taxing these companies that make people choose a simple path of windfall tax. I think otherwise. We should remember that our government has the right to tax without interference, and it should make the right decision to tax.

So unless there is no way of detecting the avoidance of tax in the system, the government should make the right decision and take necessary steps to tax all that need to be.

Are We Going Back on Tax?

I always complained about lack of export duty on mineral outputs. Seriously, this is a wasting asset and we allow it to go out of the country without the exporter paying anything? That was a bad thing that the previous government took on board.

 

However, this has been nicely worked on and there is progress in that direction. What worries me is the loss of the "Sovereign Right" to tax. What we cried about on copper seem to have been transferred to Manganese!

Manganese is it now the new plan to change from copper to manganese? Or is it that the new players in the powers are linked to manganese? This is something we need to work on and not go back on taxation.

 

Why allow people to export and not pay for the wasting assests and you complain about the failure of the mining industry to contribute to the revenue share!

 

Nothing is more to my heart that a failure of the system due to the people involved in it. Seriously, we have the most sacred job of taking care of the country now for future generations to benefit from the wealth that we have. But the moment we come into the picture, we come up with plans of making sure people "steal" the assets that are needed to develop the country. We should not make statements which are parallel to what is happening on the gorund we must take it upon ourselves to ensure we do what is right for the nation. This clearly is not happening at the moment. It has not been happening for the past 30years or so. Zambia is bigger than all of us and we must be within our powers what is right.
I seriously didn't expect that the country's wealth will continue getting out of this country without paying the simplest of all charges - export duty. But it is happening.

New K100.00 Note

The new K100.00 note is note a re-based K100.00 that we have had. People need to know this as the note may be subject to a lot of fraud activities.

The K100.00 is the highest note in the new Kwacha. It is roughly US $20.00 in value. Whilst the old K100.00 is about US $ 0.02. However, the note created did not take into account the problems the note would cause for the ordinary people. The similarity between the notes is not that great, but the difference are too little for the people who have not seen the notes before. If you have seen both, there is no problem. But failure to even be exposed to one will bring problems. 

Look at this:

The notes are way confusing for the ordinary people and the villagers. This is not a good if you know what I mean. But lets let the people judge and tell us what they think about the two notes.

I think the note should have a different colour, bigger than the old one and totally different from this.

Robbed Twice

Zambia's wealth was stolen during the colonial times. Unfortunately, thats not the only time. We have been robbed once before, and are being robbed right now!

Robbed Once

The colocinal masters came with one agenda - get all the minerals they can and any way that they can. They succeeded and got all the mineral wealth when they ruled over Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia). The result has been a totally poor country and the wealth developed Zimbabwe where a small portion was used by the settlers to develop the land they lived in.

But to all that can see what this country has got, will realize that at the time, it was impossible to fight the big guns with bow and arrows. The red Indians tried it and were almost wiped out of a land now called United States of America. We had to fight differently and in 1964, we won a great battle and got our independence. 

We must always remember what we got from this fight. They stole every piece of mineral they saw and gave nothing in return. The greed with which they came with was exhibited in all that they did and could only "leave" when there was nothing else to do. The truth is they never left.

I sometimes ask God why my people had to suffer all this while and yet we had the wealth that every one thinks and dreams about. I subscribed to the Paradox of Plenty to try and explain the inequality that has resulted from Zambia's copper and mineral wealth, it does not comfort me.

Our own people sold the mineral wealth in many forms. The stories of the Litunga and BRE selling all the mineral wealth and got paid for every extraction is a story Zambians should be familiar with. How it happens and the noise that results every year is because the people who benefited from that wealth want a bigger chunk still. None of the other paramount chiefs ever got what the Litunga got for the minerals in form of "salary" or income at one point reaching 8000 pounds a month. That was a direct benefit of stolen wealth by the way. 

They actually have used this as a point of pride here:

The concession entitled Lewanika to receive the payment of £200 annually and 4% on all minerals and precious stones mined in his territory for a period of twenty years.

I don't care if that happened with the agreement of the people. If it just included their own area would be fine to him as king. But they later wanted to increase the land in order to benefit from the same wealth that lay in other people's areas. Just like the greed of colonialists, they also learnt to steal what is not theirs. This is discussed in length here.

The point I want to bring out here is: every time we talk about colonialists robbing our country's wealth and mineral resources we should be honest enough and admit that our very own people aid and guide them on how to do it. In the colonial times, it was chiefs and people around them. They would sign anything as long as it brought something for them in the pocket the deal was done!

Sadly thats the truth.

Second Robbing

We have to know what kind of problems we are facing in the world as Zambia. We still have abundant wealth. We are very rich, sadly we are very very poor.

We have moved to midlle income country - on the few items that have been accounted for. Not accounted for in this country, but whenever some one got wind of what was collected from Zambia. So the wealth and result of that income is economic fiction to you and I. What is sad, is that people who get this wealth will actually declare it somewhere else proudly and share it amongst themselves with pride. Because they declare it there, the taxes are low. We can't see it here and we try to get a little from the stealing by raising taxes, they justify the none declaring of such undertakings as a result of high taxes. Surely there must be honour even among thieves!

Every Zambia in the colonial era knew where and what London was. People even now line up to visit the place. Nowadays, every Zambia should know about Ruschlikon, is a village in Switzerland. Because what this place receives, would change the very face of every Zambia. More so, the pocket of all Zambians. Our taxes would be low if only we got a share of what this village receives. My inspiration is here.

This is interesting as the robbing of our country's wealth is happening at the very time that I am writing this. Again this is aided by our people. Unlike Lewanika, the aiding now is from someone people voted for. I can say it as the London judgement can not be erased. Chiluba facilitated this in many ways. They actually lied about the status of the mines in order to sell it at a lose. But even that, the actual "dirt" from the mines was worth more than the mine was sold for. Least we forget:

"The judge concluded that though Mr. Chiluba had a salary of only about $10,000 a year during his decade in office, he spent more than $500,000 in a single shop, Boutique Basile, in Geneva. The shop owner, Antonio Basile, testified in 2008 that payment for the clothes sometimes arrived in suitcases stuffed with cash.

The goods are now stored in battered metal trunks by Zambia's anticorruption task force. There are piles of designer suits, monogrammed dress shirts and elegant ties, silk pajamas and dressing gowns. But most remarkable are the more than 100 pairs of size 6 shoes, many affixed with Mr. Chiluba's initials in brass. He is just a little over five feet tall, and each pair has heels close to two inches high." Its all here.

Mwanawasa tried to get something out, but died too soon. Conspiracies go here, but I never subscribed to any. Then Rupiah came on the scene and everything died a natural death. Thank God the situation was arrested and he only ruled for 3 years some say. But what happened in those 3 years?

Again, aided by our own people I should repeat.

Case for Nationalisation?

It is always strange to find an economist who subscribes to nationalization. I actually do in this case. We have to realize that mines and mienarl wealth that they bring at such levels call for serious re-thinking. We had the mines in the hands of Government, and now they are in the hands of the private sector. The two bring out one thing I would like all of us to know and think about. The returns from the mines were actually greater when the copper prices were down that when the prices are currently high. If a $10 million return came when the copper prices are low and only $2 million when they are high, it only makes sense as to get them back. After all, at a high copper price, $360 million is paid as taxes in some village in Europe. Thats one fact you have to agree with. But take that with a sharp head, not like the political rhetoric of Julius Malema. You have to get back on a footing that works better for every Zambian.

Regardless of how we do it, there is clear cheating and business conducted with parent company yet a claim of "at arm's length" in Glencore. Did you actually see how our own person laboured to defend a country he works for? I felt ashamed. He was caught unaware.

So if this was to continue, we will get nothing until the mines are declared unfit to mine anything from them. We nationalize, we get enough resources to plough back into the economy and we may actually get more benefits from this resource. America nationalized when the going was tough. We should not adopt economic policies that will not bring anything to the country when we all know how it should be done.

No economics is better than the economics that brings food on the table for all us and not the thieves. 

I believe there is a legitimate call for nationalization in the wake of transfer pricing, hedging and all manner of bad economics at play. Whilst doing that, we should cancel double taxation agreements that favour the west and disadvantage us. Actually, I think double taxation agreements which led to taxes being paid anywhere else apart from Zambia should not only be illegal but never signed and those signed canceled. We should make it a standing order that any shares exchanged on a company in Zambia should be taxed here at the rate applicable. Failure to pay those taxes should automatically trigger Government sanctions.

Moreover, we should setup mechanisms that will monitor and follow all transactions involving Zambia's mineral or other produce.

But nationalization is and will always be the cheaper option as long as we put in place a structure that will run the national resource company prudently and as a full time business.

Statutory Instrument No. 33 of 2012 - Yipppiiiieeee!!!!

The introduction of Statutory Instrument No. 33 of 2012 by the Bank of Zambia is a welcome move for any one interested in making our country Zambia better economically. I find this, an action worth celebrating over.

For starters, it was not making sense to have Kwacha which is ignored in most transactions within the republic as people preferred to trade in US Dollar. The fact that we have a legal tender, we should use it. Why should rental for housing be in US dollars and yet that house is in Zambia, in Zambian economy? There is no problem with one basing the rent on US Dollar, but that must be a good reason to do so. This action undermined kwacha and made it useless as everything was being backed by the dollar.

Dollarisation

This is a term used when citizens of a country use foreign currency (a US Dollar in this case) in parallel to or instead of the domestic currency as a medium of exchange within the domestic economy. So Zambia using any other currency to quote for prices or to demand payment of any services or goods is dollarisation.

Zambia was one country you could quote your goods and services in any currency with no shame. If there was a visit from Congo, they could have even bought in Congo currency.

But this brought with it many problems which are so severe in most cases it can even be damaging to the economy. A stop to this measure was not only needed, but was needed fast!

Benefits of S.I. 33 of 2012
There are so many positive effects that have been mentioned when issues are refered to the S.I. in question. But all in alll, I think there is only one positive effect that can be linked to this measure and the rest are merely as a result of this. This is the issue of controlling monetary policy of a country by the authorities that may be. There is no point in having monetary policy if at the end of the day, the monetary policy in the country is actually controlled from outside the country.

Zambia has a legal tender of Kwacha. So the authorities will defend and protect the Kwacha as it is the sole currency of the economy. Use of dollar or rand, will mean we tie our economic activities to another monetary authority and can even do away with some functions of the central bank. This is only useful in a country which is in a crisis.

So economic players should actually look at this measure and the great benefit it will come with.

Mis-Understandings
One common mis-understanding of the S.I. has been on the international trade. Most people expect the S.I. to block international trade and has thus brought an imbalance in the economy. Some "wise" people went as far as claiming we can't have the S.I. when Zambia is an importing country.

• Domestic trade is supposed to be conducted in the legal tender of the country. You can never go to the USA and expect to rent a house or buy a TV in Euros or Rands! But you expect this to be done in Zambia? But the problem has been that this dollarisation was left unchecked! So the S.I. simply reminds you of what currency you will use to trade in. It was shameful to walk into these "Real Estate" companies from South Africa even quoting in rands but never in Kwacha!
• International trade can continue and be conducted in any currency you wish. The only thing one needs to know is that the Kwacha is a convertible currency. That said, you can then simply pay even in Rupees as long as you use the bank system to send your money. They will in turn get your kwacha but send rupees. Simple like all other countries do.
• The bank system use will make sure the monetary authorities have control over the transactions and enable citizens buy things from anywhere in the world at no cost to our currency! Thats why when you travel out of the country, you get your usual ATM but with draw dollars or rands depending on which country you are in. The system is able to handle all transactions.
• We have a duty to protect our country and that starts with the currency. Parallel monetary policy has not helped the country at all. (Parallel in the sense that although we have our own monetary policy, it is controlled by currencies that have an embedded monetary policy of the country they come from. We had houses being sold and quoted in dollars leading to the weakening of the Kwacha every single day. Now we can concentrate on making Kwacha strong and viable in the world trade. That starts by making sure it is a legal tender for this country. I don't think I can go buy a car in South Africa with a Kwacha, why should we make possible for anyone else to come and use their currency in our country? 

This is one of the positive issues that economic players in the country should be happy about. After all, the benefits are for all the people around.

I think this measure has been one that has taken too long to be implemented and I'm one of those that think we can do a lot more to help the country prosper!

Well done for S.I. 33 of 2012!


I have heard talk about the problems of the S.I. Basically, the only "errors" the first "errors" I saw was reference to the wrong Act (the typo of year), but that would not injure the spirit of a good law. So we just need to correct that typo and a problematic paragraph and we are good to go. We need such progressive directions in this country to get something out.

Rebirth of Economic Reason ...

I have been been delighted with the sudden introduction of reasoning in our approach to economic matters of the country. For once we look at issues in the media and hear people talk using the best possible aspect of reason and economic understanding as possible. Talk is now based on issues and not tissues!

Look at how the issues of Zamtel, Debasing or the Kwacha, Corruption fight. We have as a country looked at these issues professionally and people who didn't know about them, have been educated. That's how we should handle matters that we face each day.

I hate the political talk that was all over Facebook with no logic on the matters at hand but behaving like total cadres. I think we could have done better with economic issues. We could have addressed the issues of weak tax revenues. Lack of employment and what can be done by those in authority to bring down the unemployment rate. Inflation rate (or has that now been pushed to the day we change to the debased currency?).

Infrastructure Development

What do we need to work on? I hate going to the airport which looks like its not the biggest airport in the country. Shouldn't we be thinking about building or upgrading our airports? Why not 3 terminals - at the least!

We badly need roads and this will boast our production and exports. Which roads should be first and why? We all know its expensive to maintain roads, so why not introduce toll-gates on roads to be constructed. Would actually encourage private sector to be involved in infrastructure development, especially when we eliminate the "public-ness" of some infrastructure like roads through introduction of toll chargers which will handle the issue of excludability even if there is still a non-rivalry element - all things equal of course :)!

Budgeting??

How come we have supplementary budgets all the time? Is it a failure to plan the budget? Are things being included with no budget line all the time? What has the constitution said about all this? Where are the laws and rules related to budgeting? I have not heard a soul talk about that. And I believe even the parliament over-sight on monies of the country should be strengthened further! Have we forgotten how money was used to construct and maintain roads which parliament was not told about? Is it such a short time that these issues have disappeared? We need a check on political hand in cash of the country, let them be involved in political direction. I really need to hear this as it will help our Kwacha economics in its movement and being!

Kwacha Backed

I know this issue is a thorn to some people but we need to address the kwacha. Not the political aspects as I never wish to divert to politics on this blog! But the economics of the kwacha. I believe this is the only thing that is important - to me anyway! If we work on making our Kwacha economics better, we will focus our attention on demand stimulating of kwacha backed goods (my attempt at making Zambian production a kwacha issue). The country will aim at being better in production, consumption of kwacha backed goods, getting a fair share of the mineral worth, etc. This is a way of addressing the weaknesses in our approach to economic issues and will make sure we put in place policies, infrastructure, rules and ideas to work for and produce kwacha backed goods! Proudly Zambia - that's Kwacha backing!

We need this rebirth of reason to be channelled to and focus on kwacha backed ideas, goods, services, policies, etc

The Economics of Kaunda's Humanism

Happy Birthday Kenneth D. Kaunda

I have never had anyone person linked with socialism or communism to talk about in my economics beliefs, except Kaunda. The former Zambian president has impressed me, not with what he has done, but what those that came after him failed to do. I'm a strong believer of letting the forces of the market determine what is produced, supplied and consumed. But only to the extent that Government oversees these activities through fiscal, monetary measures and also any that will ensure equity and avoid abuse from the capitalist.

So Kaunda would is expected to rank low in my list of great men in my economics, but this man has really impressed me in what he did for his country and the region. He had done more public works than you normally would have expected of him. But this is little compared to what we could have. But yet, I argue, none who took over as a president of this country came even close to what he did! So then, his works stand out, not because of what he failed to do or could have done, but because whoever came after, was interested in other issues than the welfare of the Zambia people. I have weaknesses with that. I prefer to see works standing that cadres shouting or writing books of what they did or did not do when Kaunda's works still stand! If they have fallen (like most roads and streets in many cities), its because the current leadership or the one they took over from has failed to simply maintain the infrastructure. That is the sad story.

So what economics would I call this? I know it will be a socialist kind, but maybe call it by what he believed in "Humanism". I did a quick search online for what it really means and I have found many links to one kind or the other. I have no idea which one Kaunda linked himself with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism
http://www.humanism.org.uk/humanism

But what 'Humanism Economics' was it if there is anything like that. The close one I could find was Humanistic economics which is associated with E. F. Schumacher a German born economist. This aspect of economics as Wikipedia puts it: "Proponents argue for "humanity-first" economic theories as opposed to the ideas in mainstream economic theory which they see as putting financial gain before people."

So was Kaunda following the doctrines of Humanistic economics? After all, his intentions shows he had people to look after. Most of his decisions were centered on people's welfare - regardless of where they were from. So does that take him to that level?

I know many South African freedom fighters love the man and what he did for them in the spirit of helping 'fellow man'. They adore his efforts. Many people in Zambia appreciate him after years of political power condemnation of him, only to stand less than him on what they did for this country. It is such ideas which make me ask the doctrine of one such called humanism relating to economics. How many writers came up with theories of what this school of thought had about human beings? Can it be a moderate socialism? A hybrid of capitalism and socialism with positive aspects from both schools married in one? Can people be made the center of every action? What can we produce in a nation if the main focus is on creating and uplifting the lives of the people? Can economics really be human centered and not financial gain centered?

I still search for answers to those questions. In so doing I wish to thank Kenneth D. Kaunda for having taken your time to look at an angle we may wish to look at when we approach matters that concern our beloved country. I still see many buildings that you built, many roads, hospitals, clinics, houses and I wonder every day what the para-statal companies now sold would have been turned into, if we had a well calculated effort to push the country out of poverty into the mainstream glory we desire. A regional super-house. I know that dream fades every day, I just wonder which economics will save the country.

Happy birthday!

Economic Inequality in Zambia

I have been told that almost all our problems in Zambian economics (from a maximum of 3 possible problems that I wanted narrowed down) are Inequality, Duality and Non-diversification. I will try and address these issues and see where we stand in Zambia on these aspects.

I will start with Inequality as I believe it is not only vital, but an aspect of Zambia's economy which has received a fair share of screams in the political arena. So a look at this will have a much more needed avenue to the problems of Zambia.

Economic Inequality
Defined as: Wealth and Income differences. This is differences in the distribution of economic assets or resources among the people (mainly between the rich and the poor). Street-wise definition would present a better understanding as it simply says "the gap between the rich and the poor".

Of course we can't call for an absolute equality in economic status, where all citizens are economically equal, as that is not only impossible but the mere existence of such a situation would present difficulties in running the economy itself. But a situation of a smaller gap between the rich and poor, would present a good economy as it will mean, resources are at least equitably distributed - under those cirmstances. The bigger the gap between the rich and the poor however, the more the resources are unequally distributed. As dramatically put "no citizen shall be rich enough to buy another and none so poor as to be forced to sell himself." (Rousseau?)

I have noticed (with sadness) that most Zambian politicians are always taken by ideas of Economic growth. What will this translate into? How will they define Economic growth?

This has little to do with the inequalities that face its people. It is in its crudest possible sense, mere politiking. I would appreciate a look and addressing issues of economic inequalities before we address issues of economic growth. As this will create a situation where the benefits of economic growth will be equitably distributed among the people. Under the existing structures, the more Zambia's economy grows, the wider the gap between the poor and the rich grows (unless specific measures are taken). I think it will make sense to aim at reducing inequalities in the economy also as it will translate into better living, if it's accompanied by meaningful changes in income distribution. No sense in having a growing economy with more than 70% of the people in absolute poverty. Or having a very rich elite benefiting from the economy and the majority of the people in absolute poverty. So we should aim at having a growth, with specific distributional policies aimed at making the gap between the rich and poor smaller and ensuring everyone benefits from the endorements of the country. Any other direction will result in bad and non-benefitial growth - if that is even achieved.

Ideas of empowering citizens will produce better results, if there is political will to achieve equitable distribution of resources in the country. Such sad statictics make me think we need to re-visit the planning aspects of our economy:

"80 percent of the population in terms of earnings were reported to have acquired only 31.3 percent of the total income, while the top 20 percent of the population claimed 68.67 percent of the total income" (April 2008, CSO monthly).

A good economic idea, would be to have policies which will encourage and move the poorest of the poor, to a more meaningful economic standing. This would greatly improve the living standards of the people, encourage them to aim higher, educate their children, and live a moderate life. Under the prevailing situation, the poor are seriously trapped in the poverty trap. Where movement to any meaningful economic life is not only limited, but in some cases even impossible. And so they end up taking their children out of school, abuse them through child labour, prostitution and early marriages. Their children will either go through the same path or even worse.

On the other hand, the rich keep getting richer. Corruption is the order of the day. It gets so bad that you even expect all government workers to be corrupt in one or the other. If there are policies which would get some of this money enjoyed by the rich and ploughed into education and health, we will have a better people living a better life.

Where Do We Start From?
This is easy. Leave it to the economist to design, you will produce a good product. Add politicians to the equation, eveything is a mess! And yet, its the politicians who ultimately decide what to do. I believe having a very honest political team, could even do better than the economist. Unfortunately, politics in Zambia is all about getting rich and not providing a service! Every project has to be looked at with 'benefits for me' or 'blocking X's party or X himself from enjoying this'. The politics of the belly as one once coined the phrase!

The African Problem
Africa would move fast than most places on this planet. It has the resources to do it. From oil to Uranium. It can ultimately live with no worries about tomorrow as its endorements have whatever the African people need. However, Africa is always hurt and destroyed by it people. The selfish politician running the country, and the people close to him. Sometimes you wonder if we got our independence to early before people could understand the true meaning of a 'States Man' or maybe the colonial masters trained the wrong people to start with. Our freedom fighters had a vision of the continent. They sacrificed alot to achieve what we have achieved now.

But the worse group came after these left. In some cases, the ideas they had before independence died with the new found power of being a President of such a country! Corruption, brutality, rigging, self-enriching method of governance has spread in all corners of Africa. Inequality came like wild fires.

So maybe to rid this continet of inequality is to start with leadership. We need to put in motion a system that will favour systems and governements that strive to address inequalities of the people. Then we can set in motion, economics which addresses these problems. Its not a one country problem, its an African problem.

Solutions!
Besides the mere fact of changing the politics of any one country, the solution of inequality is to put in place 'Pro-Poor' Economic pathways. An economy must recognise the problems of the poor, find simplest possible ways of addressing these problems, setup mechanisms which will address these and any problems which will result from the elimination efforts.

Over the next blogs, I will look at the remaining problems and address possible 'Pro-Poor' solutions.

Kwacha Economics - The Dawn

Welcome to my new blog dealing with economics issues.

I set aside most IT issues that I have blogged on, and take my time to look at issues in the economics arena.

Why Kwacha Economics?
Lets start with the definition of Kwacha Ngwee, it self, the money unit of Zambia. As wikipedia simply puts it:-
The name derives from the Nyanja and Bemba word for "dawn", alluding to the Zambian nationalist slogan of a "new dawn of freedom". The name ngwee translates as "bright" in the Nyanja language.

Need I say more? This is my new dawn of economics blogs. Let my thoughts make my economics come bright as the morning sun of a new dawn...