Quarterly Bulletin

Bulletin 80 2nd Quarter 2009

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Dear Readers,

The second quarter of 2009 was an interesting one but also an annoying one. Debates on the global financial crisis and development aid occupied most of the second quarter in Zambia. The quarter was interesting because of development debates, but annoying in that Government wasn’t very responsive to the challenges of strikes, misappropriation of public funds, and questions on the nature of the National Constitutional Conference (NCC). Actually a National Indaba (5-6 April) on the global financial crisis was organised by the Zambian Government. To most Zambians' surprise, there was no follow up and we are yet to see a report of the Indaba. Dambisa Moyo's book Dead Aid aroused a lot of debate with her thesis that aid has not brought any development to Africa but underdevelopment, corruption and dictatorial states and that aid should be stopped in five years. Dambisa even came to Zambia (part of her global marathon as a celebrity on her book) and discussed aid with some Zambian economists and others including our JCTR staffer Humphrey Mulemba.

Despite the very good arguments of Humphrey that Dambisa's arguments were either faulty or misplaced in the aid debate, Dambisa arrogantly withheld her position and this was the same in all the places she global trotted where she closed the debate by not even seeing the good arguments of others. At the same time that Dambisa published her book, Peter Singer, a much more sober writer, published a book The Life you Can Save. In Singer’s book, a much sharper reason that people should be moved to give aid is given, namely that it is just human to help others when they are suffering or "drowning." By just giving a small percentage of one's earnings (5%), we could actually end world poverty.

In the second quarter, we witnessed strikes by health workers, school teachers and University of Zambia (UNZA) lecturers demanding salary increases and in some cases these were actually promised. The teachers and health workers were demanding about 30% salary increment. After a long time of not working (striking), they were only awarded 15% (even when Government had only budgeted for a decent 11% increment in the year). The University of Zambia lecturers were much more unfortunate for they were only assured of 3% increment (although they have refused to accept this).

The biggest problem in Zambia with strikes (that often are a cause of death to a good number of Zambians especially in the health sector) is that Government often does not respond in time to the needs of the people. Even when Government knows exactly what they will do, they will wait until valuable time is lost, patients unnecessarily die, and students lose school time, for them to respond. One of the characteristics of good governance is "responsiveness" (responding to people’s needs) Our Government is failing on this principle because when all the strikes were happening, our leaders were busy enjoying themselves on international visits and lobbying for their "contractual" mid-term gratuities (over US$80, 000 per person). The Church was key in speaking out against Government’s non-responsiveness in their statements and letters but got only scorns and the usual bad advice that the Church should keep to the pulpits and not be involved in public life.

The constitution making process through the National Constitutional Conference (NCC) has continued to be stalled because of personal and political interests. Some of the recommendations of Zambians aired through the Mung'omba Constitution Review Commission (CRC) were rejected by the NCC or pushed to a national referendum. Catholic Bishops and others have several times called for the disbandment of this NCC for it is non-viable and going contrary to the aspirations and desires of Zambians. But the NCC continues to sit indefinitely, at great expense to us tax payers. Despite the JCTR having contributed to the NCC debates by giving very objective and good papers on debt management and the need for economic, social and cultural rights, we cannot but agree more with the Catholic Bishops that the NCC is becoming non-viable if their sittings are going on indefinitely (with no clear timetable) and if the NCC is going against the recommendations of Zambian citizens voiced in the Mung'omba CRC.

Partnering with the British based Catholic Agency for Development (CAFOD) on the Action for Better Governance (ABG) programme, the JCTR has undertaken a study on the communications and statements of the Catholic Bishops from 2007 to date on governance issues. We have found that despite the good recommendations and advice from the Church, no real action is taken by Government and this is worrying in Zambia's governance.

October 2009 will see the Second African Synod meeting in Rome. Preparations on the Synod continue and JCTR has contributed to this process, through a pre-synod book and by having our Director, Peter Henriot, being one of the advisors to the AMECEA Bishops at the Synod.

Articles in this Bulletin are heavily theological touching on Synod issues, and the new Pope's encyclical and its relevance to the Zambian situation. Other articles deal with the issue of aid and the G20 commitments, HIV and AIDS, poverty and other social justice issues. We encourage you our readers to continue contributing to these issues through your comments, letters and articles.

Dominic Liche, Editor

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