Listen to what people are saying on Zamtel, Shamenda urges Rupiah

Listen to what people are saying on Zamtel, Shamenda urges Rupiah
By Abigail Chaponda in Ndola
Sun 01 Nov. 2009, 04:01 CAT

FORMER Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) president Fackson Shamenda has advised President Rupiah Banda's administration to reflect on why some foreign government-controlled telecommunications companies are interested in buying Zamtel.

Commenting on the planned sale of 75 per cent shares in Zamtel, Shamenda urged President Banda and the MMD government to listen to what people were saying. He described Zamtel as a rare “diamond” that the Zambian government could not afford to lose.

“Why are other governments in the world not privatising their telecommunications companies? And if you can see the companies that have been short-listed, they are government owned. Why are other governments interested in Zamtel? So why should we sell our public institution to another government?

It doesn't make sense to me,” Shamenda said. “When you are looking at communications, telecommunications in particular… this is a communications age because everything centres on telecommunication. Any government which owns a communications company is a lucky government and should keep it.”

He wondered why the Zambian government was quick to privatise Zamtel when other countries were improving their communication companies.

“I believe that it is a very unwise decision to give 75 per cent shares to a foreign country, and it is not too late. As much as everyone is talking about privatisation and the stage we have reached, maybe what we can do is not give away more than 50 per cent,” he said.

“I would have expected government to say 49 per cent contract management so that there is no interference but this 'diamond' Zamtel should be owned by Zambians. Because if a private company owns 75 per cent, if they so wish, they can close the company like they did with the mines. A mine, you can close but can you close a telecommunication company, even for 10 minutes? You can't!”

Shamenda said politics had landed Zambian public institutions into problems.

“Our government is only scared to interfere in companies that are run by foreigners and only have political interference in public institutions because they want to choose who is going to run the company based on their terms.

A, is not from this political party, B, comes from the wrong tribe, C, is this, this and that, until you get to the sixth person who you think is going to support government and this is why we have these problems,” he said.

“But if you have an appetite of politicising these institutions, the way out is to say that we privatise because you have the appetite of controlling everything. But that should not be the case because, even in our situation like Zambia National Commercial Bank (Zanaco), a lot of private banks collapsed, meanwhile Zanaco survived. Why? Because of good management despite the fact that it is not a hidden story that there was a lot of political interference at that time.”

Shamenda warned that telecommunication had some security aspects involved.

“… There would be a situation where government would have serious financial problems, you cannot plead with a private company to say that leave State House connected, leave some ministries and hospitals connected. Government is supposed to be supporting these institutions, but you will find that government is the one that even owes these public institutions a lot of money. Privatising Zamtel and Zesco would cause serious problems in the country.

Private companies can switch off and take their equipment to another country like they did with the mines and when that happens, what are we going to do? So I think, to me I believe government should reconsider the approach just like what a good number of people have said,” he said.

“I think we are treading in dangerous waters, which can cause a lot of problems, not necessarily to us but to our children's children. And that is not being very responsible, why must we give this country to other persons?”

Shamenda said what is happening in Zamtel was exactly what happened with Zambia Airways.

“We had a quarrel with the government when they were liquidating Zambia Airways, how many years down the line, up to now the assets of Zambia Airways are still there. They have not finished liquidating Zambia Airways because it had a lot of assets.

All they could have done was to reorganise it, put management in place and stop political interference and it was going to succeed. Zamtel is solid; it is not as people say it is. Look at the exchanges that are there, the optic fiber they are putting in place, the buildings, the human resource, some of the people who are in Zamtel, a lot of people have spent money to train these telecommunications engineers,” he said.

Shamenda also demanded the release of the RP Capital evaluation report on Zamtel.

“I have not looked at the evaluation report from RP capital. The report could have been a starting point for all stakeholders to look. And people would have pointed out; this was not taken into consideration because it is a public institution. Why should a few individuals decide for the many Zambians?

Why the secrecy? We want to know the outcome of the evaluation, because even up to now very few people are privileged with that information,” said Shamenda.

“I hope it doesn't become another Gabon disaster, this is straightforward information, this is why people become suspicious. There has not been any transparency in the sale of Zamtel. There is more to it than just say 'we are selling'. Maybe government is right to sell Zamtel but without the evaluation report, we are not going to know the truth.

You see we are all arguing from a point of being uninformed, even for government they might be misled, but if this thing was public, it would be to the benefit of government itself and government would come out and say whatever happened, they would not apologise but will say we did this thing together with the public … People have spoken enough, like Shakespeare says, 'the world is a stage, you play your part and you leave the stage'... I appeal to the government to listen because a lot of people have said what I have said, I am just reinforcing, it is up to government to listen.

“A lot of parastatals were privatised but why was Zamtel and Zesco left out? This is what our government is supposed to be asking itself because it is a well-known fact that there is a lot of security in these two companies. If there is war for example, you will have no control over these companies. These investors will uproot their equipment and go to another country and then you can imagine a country without communication and energy.

It is more like why the government is keeping the government-owned newspapers. They would want to use them for their propaganda to advocate to the people. I urge the government to listen to what people are saying over the sale of Zamtel. Zamtel is a rare diamond we cannot afford not to have.”