FROM THE PRIVATISATION HEAD MR FRANCIS KAUNDA.
By Francis Kaunda
GRZ/ZCCM Privatisation Negotiating Team (PNT) head Francis Kaunda has written about his experiences leading the government’s privatization programme of mining companies during MMD rule.
Mr Kaunda’s account is significant and unique especially as it comes from a mining expert, a man who ,before leading the PNT, had been chairman & CEO of ZCCM when the government owned the mines during UNIP days.
Under “The Politicians”, Mr Kaunda reveals some of his frustrating encounters with some Cabinet ministers at the time whom he said made his work burdensome through various tactics, including “misplaced and uninformed invective and blatant disinformation.”
Notably, Edith Nawakwi was Finance Minister at the time. Mr Kaunda does not seem to have a positive assessment of her. He gives examples.
Mr Kaunda describes a moment when Nawakwi tried to subvert the PNT’s efforts by conducting separate talks with some of the foreign bidders against government procedure.
He says: “Nawakwi’s efforts bordered on the hysterical. She was credited with organizing the infamous rendezvous between Kafue Consortium and a team from government at Lilayi Lodge while the negotiating team was out of the country. Unfortunately, whatever agreement they reached could not be consummated because they could not pass the test of the approved procedure.”
In another dramatic encounter, Mr Kaunda describes how Nawakwi brought a Canadian consultant firm (Carlington Sales Company represented by a dubious character called Ari Ben-Menashe) whom Nawakwi said would arrange Canadian mining houses interested to buy Zambia’s mines.
“We took off and arrived in Montreal on 10 June 1998. The following day we were taken to some very posh offices. Upon inquiry, we were informed the offices were actually a law firm’s boardroom. We sat down to face a group of officials we thought were executives from the said mining houses”, he says.
Mr Kaunda continues: “We later learnt that the officials we met in Montreal were a bunch of retired mining executives rounded up to perform for a fee.”
(From: “Selling the Family Silver: The Zambian Copper Mines Story” a book by Francis Kaunda, published 2002).
