Maravi

Zamtel vested interests

COMMENT - RP Capital is a Dany Gertler company. Gertler is a rival to Beny Steinmetz, who is the largest rough diamond purchaser for the Oppenheimer family. Dany Gertler has extensive mining interests across the border in the DRC. That is what RP Captial of the Cayman Islands is. And by the way, the Cayman Islands is an international tax shelter.

Zamtel vested interests
Written by Editor

It is true that Rupiah Banda is speaking in tongues; languages that cannot be understood. Former defence minister George Mpombo accused Rupiah of failing to speak clearly and thus speaking in strange tongues about the MMD convention. Rupiah seems to want to play a Frederick Chiluba style non-committal approach to this issue.

We saw Chiluba pretend to be quiet when the third term was being debated. But everybody knew that he had enough rented crowds to champion his cause so that he did not need to open his mouth. Rupiah is clearly playing the same game.

But it is not only about the MMD convention that Rupiah and his government are speaking in tongues. There are many issues that our people are concerned about on which they expect clear government positions. But what they are getting is consistent inconsistency.

Yesterday the Zambia Development Agency, through its chief executive Andrew Chipwende, announced the commencement of the privatisation of Zamtel. Making Zamtel a better company to serve our people would be a commendable thing indeed. Many of our people appreciate that communication, especially affordable communication, is vital to the growth of our economy.

No one can deny that the growth in mobile telephony has had a revolutionary impact on our people. Suddenly, people who could not run businesses because they did not have premises from which they could be contacted, find that they have an office in their pocket: a cell phone.

Plumbers, mechanics, bricklayers and many other artisans can now advertise their services and be contactable through affordable telephony. Making Zamtel into a better company is not the problem with the proposal to privatise. It is the manner this thing has been done that raises a lot of questions.

It is clear that Rupiah is determined to sell Zamtel whatever anybody says. Many of our people in our country know that the beginning of this transaction was marred in a lot of controversy. This controversy even led to the setting up of a Ministerial Code of Conduct tribunal against Dora Siliya, who was the minister for transport at the time. That tribunal found that Dora had not followed the advice of the Attorney General on the matter. Dora also ignored the tender processes in the appointment of RP Capital Partners.

The choice of RP Capital Partners as the exclusive financial advisor to the government on this transaction is questionable. Rupiah has not yet told the nation what his son Henry’s connection is to RP Capital Partners. What role did Rupiah and his son, Henry, play in securing the appointment of RP Capital? Rupiah would be well advised to address these questions because they won’t go away. Without giving our people satisfactory answers to his role and that of his son, Henry, we are entitled to conclude that this whole transaction is a sham, a scam designed to hide corruption.

First and foremost, who is RP Capital? A search on the internet will tell our people that RP Capital Partners describe themselves as “Alternative investment firm specialising in identifying superior and long term investment opportunities on behalf of institutional investors and qualified high net-worth individuals.” In other words, RP Capital Partners find ‘cheap’ or possibly undervalued assets to acquire for their ‘clients’. If their own description of what they do is to be accepted as a full listing of their activities, RP Capital Partners seem to be vultures looking for ‘cheap’ assets to pick up for their ‘clients’.

The question is: how could such a group be hired to value and sell Zamtel? What is it that qualifies RP Capital Partners to undertake such an important duty for our people? Is it possible that there are some high net-worth individuals within the corridors of power that are interested in holding offshore shares in Zamtel?

This newspaper has endeavoured to identify the natural persons behind or connected to RP Capital Partners of Cayman Islands. Not surprisingly, RP Capital Partners seems to have been drawn from a ‘black hole’. The little that is available suggests that RP Capital Partners may be connected to an individual called Dan Gertler and his associates. This Gertler is connected to serious allegations of corruption in the Congo DR. He is also connected to allegations of trading in illicit diamonds, otherwise known as blood or conflict diamonds in the Congo. Are these the kind of people our government expects to operate in the interest of our people?

We challenge government to tell the nation who is behind RP Capital Partners. Rupiah and his family should know that even if just one dollar found its way into his pocket or that of any member of his family or agent, out of the Zamtel transaction, this is corruption. We say this because it is quite clear that Henry has been involved in this transaction and Rupiah sees nothing wrong with this.

It is said that those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat the mistakes of history. Zamtel is not the first company to be embroiled in privatisation controversy. Other matters which people thought would always be secret have now come to light and people are paying for their misdeeds.

A number of years ago, this newspaper carried stories about the scam that was being brewed around the attempted privatisation of Ndola Lime. It was clear that Chiluba was pushing for the quick privatisation of Ndola Lime. The whole transaction smelled rotten and we called it as much. Today, we now know that former Access Financial Services Limited managing director Faustin Kabwe was the one behind the attempt to buy Ndola Lime for himself and some ‘unnamed’ government officials. In the recently concluded trial of Chiluba, Faustin told the court that the intelligence, through Xavier Chungu, were supposed to be his partners in purchasing Ndola Lime.

At that time, the government was up in arms defending the cleanliness of that transaction. But today, the evidence is out in the open; it was a rotten transaction. And for his part, Faustin promised to cause the government to give a cellular licence and an exclusive lotto licence to a Belgian businessman who was going to provide them funding to buy Ndola Lime. How could a private citizen contract to cause government to give a cellular licence and an exclusive lotto licence, unless his activities had the full blessings of the government.

The way Zamtel is being handled gives us the impression that somebody in government is up to no good. It is only a question of time before we begin to know the exact details of who is pushing for what, who has instructed who to do what?

If, as the government would have us believe, the rush is because they want to raise cash for Zamtel, why have they not tried to raise the cash from Zambia? Why rush to the so-called foreign equity partners? Even if Zamtel requires huge sums of cash, there are ways of doing it that ensure that our people get the best out of this transaction. Selling 75 per cent of an ailing company is the most senseless business proposition one could come up with.

Zamtel is not a valueless company. We have said before that telecoms is where the future of commerce is headed. Anyone controlling the communication platform has no reason not to succeed. Zamtel has got historical problems that have been exacerbated by neglect and lack of interest. But this is no reason to give it away for free.

We say this because at the rate government is going, they will get so little for Zamtel that it won’t make any sense for our people. It must not be forgotten that Zamtel has got infrastructure that has been developed using taxpayer funds for close to two generations, if not more. That infrastructure may seem moribund because it’s already there. Try building it today and see how much money you will spend. Therein lies the value of Zamtel. This is why Zamtel should not be given away thoughtlessly as seems to be the case now.

If people were interested in helping our nation, they would have restructured Zamtel before trying to sell it. Trying to sell Zamtel in the state that they say it is is criminal. What price are they going to fetch for it? We say this because from where we sit, it seems Zamtel has a bad balance sheet. Its debt position is maybe frightening for small businesses, but Zamtel is a big company. Zamtel has huge potential and intrinsic value. Anyone saying that a telecommunications company is not valuable in today’s globalised market place is an ignoramus or a crook wanting to steal from the people.

This Zamtel transaction stinks and our people should not accept the abuse of their resources. Zamtel is their company; they should not allow the government to give it away for nothing because of vested interests.

Labels: CORRUPTION, PRIVATISATION, RP CAPITAL PARTNERS, ZAMTEL

posted by MrK @ 11:33 PM