Understanding Corruption in Zambia

By Chola Mukanga
A key feature of discussions about corruption is the tendency to treat
corruption as a uniform phenomenon. Commentators often veer
unconsciously from one form of corruption to the next without clarity. It is
common to read a commentator say, corruption is on the increase,
without explaining what is actually meant by the term corruption.
The failure to distinguish between the many forms of corruption inevitably
impacts on the quality of the public debate. In particular, it prevents
accurate retelling of history and undermines the search for effective
solutions. For example, until we understand the multi-faceted nature of
corruption we wont be clear whether corruption is worse under the Banda
administration than it was under the Kaunda presidency. We also wont be
able to understanding the extent to which the supposed on-going fight
against corruption is succeeding.
The Laws of Zambia (ACC Act No 42 of 1996) defines corruption as the
soliciting, accepting, giving or offering of a gratification by way of a bribe
or other personal temptation or inducement, or the misuse of abuse of a
public office for private advantage or benefit. This is a broad definition,
with several vices falling under the term corruption. This short essay
examines five of these vices as reflected in our society: bribery; public
theft; political corruption; wilful mismanagement; and, nepotism.
A culture of bribes
The most well-known form of corruption in our society is bribery. Bribes
are offered to facilitate transactions between parties. Politicians are often
derided for suggesting that tackling corruption must start with each and
every Zambian. What they usually mean is that corruption is a moral evil
that can be prevented by anyone with a free will. Every Zambian is free to
refuse paying / accepting bribes. That Zambians engage in bribery points
to the moral bankruptcy of the nation as a whole. Bribery in Zambia is
therefore not fundamentally a political problem but a social one. We are a
corrupt people. That is not to say that politicians have not played their
role in creating and maintaining this bribery culture. Although bribery has
always been with us it has undoubtedly got worse in the last 20 years
under MMD rule. The culture of free market liberalism and emphasis on
personal enrichment coupled with signals of public theft by the elite has
ushered in the so called Sangwapo culture. Bribery is now not just
accepted it is assumed.
The precise scale of private bribes is always difficult to gauge. We know
that one cannot get anything done in Zambia rapidly without some form
of underhand payment, but how many bribes are paid annually? Data
collection in this area tends to focus on public officials. For example, in
2007, surveys showed that 1 in 5 businesses expected to make informal
payments to public officials, while 1 in 3 expected to make gifts to secure

government contracts. Those figures only apply to public officials. It

excludes bribes paid to other businesses, non-government organisations
and most importantly chiefs, who are undoubtedly the largest non-official
recipients of bribes.
But are bribes damaging to the economy? The empirical evidence is
mixed, but it certainly rules out the idea that bribery is beneficial. While
bribes in a very narrow sense can speed up things and help entrepreneurs
get on with wealth creation, in a broader sense, these bribes are obstacles
to development. This is because the cumbersome procedures that bribes
are supposed to help overcome are usually created and maintained
precisely because of their corruption potential. Substantial resources are
devoted to contesting the associated rents, which in turn leads to pure
waste and misallocation of scarce resources.
Given the opportunistic nature of bribery the appropriate policy response
is to remove the opportunity to bribe. At the practical level it means that
if we want to stop police officers from taking bribes, we must move to
eliminate the pointless road blocks that permeate our society. Similarly,
we must remove excessive legislation that provides opportunities for
businesses to bribe. Empirical evidence appears to show a strong
relationship between bribery and various measures of excessive.
Robbing the poor
A key challenge in tackling bribery of course is detection. The same
cannot be said for the other form of corruption public theft. The general
public may not know which official has greasy fingers until they are
caught, but they can sense when public money has been stolen. We have
come to call this public theft grand corruption, to reflect the often larger
amounts of money stolen.
The Task Force on Corruption was predicated to investigate the alleged
grand theft committed by the MMD administration between 1991 and
2001. The grand in the end has not quite fitted the original billing as the
main suspect, Second President Frederick Chiluba, was subsequently
acquitted of all criminal charges.
In recent months the theft charges have shifted to administrative
robbery. Scandal after scandal appears to have once again caught public
imagination. The list runs long, including the Ministry of Health Kapoka
scandal[i], Road Development Agency[ii], Zambia Wildlife Authority[iii],
Zambia Police[iv], High Court of Zambia[v], Zambia Revenue Authority[vi],
Ministry of Local Government[vii], Lusaka City Council[viii], Legal Aid
Board[ix] and Water Affairs Department[x] . These and other cases have
highlighted significant levels of administrative theft perpetuated by
supposedly loyal civil servants. Indeed, even the Task Force on
Corruption was allegedly corrupt[xi]. Like the society at large, once again
we find that the theres a corrupt culture at every tier of government
administration.

Public theft cases continue to be met with uproar from the general public,
much more than the systematic bribery which occurs at an equally larger
scale. Whilst this may be due to poor detection of bribery, the inner sense
of injustice offers a likely reason. Zambians may be willing to accept / pay
bribes because they have erected a corrupt culture over the last two
decades, but explicit public theft appears to run counter to the principle of
natural justice. It violates access to goods and services which are
inherently their right. By stealing, the official is robbing money away from
the poor in a more explicit way than other forms of corruption. It is this
aspect of public theft that causes much consternation across Zambian
society.

Not all theft causes significant national damage, at least, in the short
term. In most cases, money is merely misallocated and redistributed
within the economic system. The most damage is done through capital
flight, when money is stolen and siphoned out of the country, resulting in
a drain from the economic system. Addressing this form of corruption
requires a concerted approach among countries. Unfortunately, many
developed countries have little economic incentive to prevent capital
flight because they are content to see such money lodge within their
banking systems. If all stolen money from Africa was returned many
western economies would collapse.
Corrupt politicians
Not all stolen money is whisked abroad. Usually such money goes towards
supporting political corruption. Since 1991, with the dawn of multi-party
politics Zambia has witnessed an unprecedented rise in political
corruption. Increased electoral competition has given many social actors
especially chiefs unparalleled opportunities to emerge as "kingmakers".
Their place in society allows them to trade (tribal) voting blocs in
exchange for significant sums of money, investment in chiefs places, new
vehicles and other things designed to capture their support.
During the 2008 presidential bye-elections, Chief Mwene Kahare was
rounded up with other Nkoya chiefs to meet the then MMD presidential
candidate Rupiah Banda. Unfortunately, the chief found himself lodged in
cheaper accommodation than he expected, which prompted him to voice
his disappointment : "Those who are always flying, the MMD, had to dump
us in those lodges in Kaoma and we were even starving....In the morning,
it was just an order from the District Commissioner's office that 'you take
them back'. I feel that was very disappointing". But its not only chiefs
who are bought. Mr Rupiah Banda achieved fame in Katete not for coopting chiefs but for alleged food based corruption. There was general

public condemnation when pictures

distributing food to potential voters.

surfaced

showing

Mr

Banda

The Katete incident now stands as the high point of exposing political
corruption. Generally, buying the electorate either through chiefs or
directly has not attracted public disgust as other corrupt vices. A key
reason is that political corruption is seasonal. It tends to occur only when
an election is called. This effectively turns it into a one shot game, with
little incentive for people to report. People usually prefer to eat since the
opportunity does not arise often. The other reason of course is that even
when people detect political corruption, the lack of enforcement
mechanisms acts as a huge disincentive to report such activities to
authorities. As a general rule detecting and reporting corruption suffers
from a free riding problem. Why report something that will bring you into
conflict with the powers that be?
Lobbying for poverty
A key determinant of successful electioneering is campaign finance which
is usually sourced from multinational companies that lobby policy
changes. In its purest form lobbying is perfectly legal as it simply seeks
to influence legislators to see the merit of a given policy proposal. We all
lobby politicians all the time. The problem is the specific form of lobbying
which allows people with particular interests who represent a minority to
gain special access to government, and through monetary contributions
and favours, develop controversial relationships with government leaders
or institutions. This constitutes a form of back door corruption, which is
very prevalent in Zambia.
One of the interesting historical questions is the extent to which the
assumed reduction in public theft under the Mwanawasa administration
was merely substituted by foreign lobbying. Recent empirical evidence [xii]
shows that there's certainly influence peddling going on in Zambia by
many multinational firms, which has affected industrial competition and
productivity. Theres no better example of this than the government failure
to effectively implement a fiscal regime for the mining industry, in face of
very strong arm twisting[xiii]. Mining has always been a sphere of intense
lobbying at much expense to the poor. Report after report [xiv] catalogue
the clouds that still hang over the now abolished Development
Agreements (DAs), which to date has not been lifted through a credible
public inquiry.
DAs sympathisers would of course say that the problem was not lobbying,
but poor mismanagement on part of government. The argument is that
often public officials suffer from significant asymmetric information which
puts them at a disadvantage when negotiating a deal. Edith Nawakwi
typifies this posture when she appealed to ignorance in justifying the sale
of mines at giveaway prices, We were told by advisers, who included the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, that not in my lifetime

would the price of copper change. They put production models on the
table and told us that there was no copper in Nchanga mine, Mufulira was
supposed to have five years life left and all the production models that
could be employed were showing that, for the next 20 years, Zambian
copper would not make a profit. [Conversely, if we privatised] we would
be able to access debt relief, and this was a huge carrot in front of us like waving medicine in front of a dying woman. We had no option [but to
go ahead]. No one seriously believes Nawakwis poor attempt to shift the
blame on the IMF / World Bank, but it does illustrate that often those in
government are only too ready to plead incompetence rather than the
more serious charges of conniving with foreign forces to defraud the State
of Zambia.
In recent times, similar challenges have emerged for external observers or
law enforcement agencies in being able to distinguish between corruption
and pure mismanagement. In 2009, the Auditor General revealed that,
the Zambian mission in Brussels [in 2007] spent over K1 billion on school
fees, but the payments were not supported by invoices and receipts. Is
this a case of not following proper management practices or theft of public
funds?

Another celebrated case relates to the famous purchase of hearses, which

were allegedly bought at an inflated price of $29,000 per hearse when the
actual price was only a third of the amount quoted. The late Minister
Tetamashimba after much political pressure declared: "I believe that there
were irregularities in the transaction and if it is proved that the price of
the hearses was not inflated and that the terms of conditions were
adhered to, I will resign as minister on principle". The case has now gone
quiet and the public still waits to understand whether it was a simple
oversight by civil servants or a more elaborate plan to defraud the
Zambian people.
A renewed enemy
Financial reward is not the only motivation for corrupt activities, other
considerations usually come into play as is the case with nepotism, the
favouritism granted to relatives or friends, without regard to their merit
(tribalism, regionalism and other isms probably also fall within the scope).
Town clerks are not headline makers, but Livingstone Towns George
Kalenga hit news headlines in 2007 when in a letter to all heads of
departments at the council, warned : I have observed for quite sometime
now that the phenomenon of employing relations in this council,
especially those falling in the category of casual is on the increase.This
sort of scenario is to a greater extent contributing to the poor
performance by the said category of employees who are supposed to

carry out specific duties because of our personal attachment to them.

What followed was a surprisingly intense debate on the scourge of
nepotism. Until recently nepotism was rarely discussed in the press.
Everyone knew it was there but it was not a feature of political dialogue.
The traditional nature of our society is one where family relations often
dictate economic and social arrangements in our villages. We might even
go further to say that the prevalent nature of nepotism may well be a
function of undeveloped impersonal forms of exchange. The market has
not fully taken hold at every level of our society and thus instead of
competing on merit in every sphere, we are tied to relying on family
members, etc.

In the broader scheme of things, Mr Kalengas sentiments appears to

coincide with a growing realisation in the Third Republic that the
destruction of the One Zambia, One Nation motto under the Chiluba
Administration, was giving way to an undercurrent of growing regionalism
which appears to have culminated in the emergence of the so called
family tree under the 3rd Republican President Levy P Mwanawasa. Mr
Mwanawasa achieved some positive things during his tenure, but
undoubtedly many will also remember his legacy, rightly or wrongly, as
nepotistic. A fact he never run away from. When quizzed publicly over his
nepotistic tendencies, President Mwanawasas rehearsed rhetorical
response was: do you guys expect me to appoint or help my enemies?
No, Mr President, but the public expects you to appoint people on merit.
In many ways nepotism is worse than other forms of corruption for three
reasons. First, as we saw under the Mwanawasa era it can give rise to
worse evils. It was during the Mwanawasa tenure that the concept of
Lambaland emerged which has led to rival identities developing (e.g.
Bembaland, Tongaland and Barotseland). Nepotism, regionalism and
tribalism are now prevalent and are threatening to tear Zambias
nationhood. Nepotism unchecked therefore is an existential threat.
Secondly, nepotism substantially weakens lines of authority and promotes
incompetent people over those who are better qualified, inevitably turning
the institutions of government into personal toys. Finally, it does not just
misallocate resources but it also inevitably discriminates against capable
individuals, in favour of less competent family or tribal relations.
Unfortunately, its quiet nature also makes it much more challenging to
tackle. This must change if Zambia is to make substantial headway and
preserve the unitary state.
So what are we to conclude? As one reflects between the many vices of
corruption, it becomes readily clear that as a nation we face significant
challenges in eliminating corruption. The rise of the political and economic
liberalism in 1991 has spawned a new culture of corruption which has
been overseen by those in power. The new politics brought new electoral

competition which led to greater political bribery and intense lobbying

from foreign investors and other groups. Privatisation led to culture of
irresponsibility with significant public theft which continues to persist. It
has taken two decades to build a culture of corruption it will take longer to
destroy it. Culture is resilient. We should be upfront that corruption will
always be here. Nepotism, public theft and other banes will always exist.
The question is one of scale. In our reading of history and the quest to
develop mechanisms for combating this social evil it is vital that we
deepen our understanding of the complex issues involved. Blanket
assessment of corruption makes headlines, but it does not help move the
country forward. This essay is an attempt to broaden this understanding
and steer discussion in the right direction. We have become a corrupt
nation, and only with understanding can we begin to reverse the corrupt
culture.

Chola Mukanga is an economist and founder of the Zambian Economist which provides
independent economic perspectives on Zambia's progress towards meaningful development
for her people