By Mubanga Mubanga
Outgoing United States of America Ambassador to Zambia Micheal Gonzales has denounced term limits, wondering if the next constitutional amendment which the Attorney General has already announced is really just a guise for resetting term limits.
Speaking during his farewell reception at the Ambassador’s residency in Lusaka, Ambassador Gonzales, in a strongly worded speech, raised many issues against President Hakainde Hichilema and the UPND administration.
Among the notable senior UPND government officials during the event where Secretary to Treasury Felix Nkulukusa, Bank of Zambia Governor Dr Denny Kalyalya. Prominent UPND Mazabuka-Central member of parliament Garry Nkombo was also in attendance.
Although, he did not mention the President directly, Ambassador Gonzales did very little to hide the fact he was basically talking about the President and his administration.
He condemned the government for ignoring the Constitutional Court ruling on constitutional amendment number, to ram through the bill through Parliament for its passage.
“When Parliament ignores the Constitutional Court’s ruling that the process used to ram through a constitutional amendment was itself unconstitutional, investors rightly ask ‘If they can do that to the constitution, what does that mean for the sanctity of my contract?’ They rightly wonder if the next constitutional amendment which the Attorney General has already announced is really just a guise for resetting term limits,” he said.
Amb Gonzales described the rhetoric by the UPND government of “no sacred cows” in the corruption fight as “rubbish”.
He stressed that members of the opposition were the only ones being arrested, but not those in office engaged in the same practices.
“The rhetoric of ‘no sacred cows’ is rubbish when there aren’t any cows except those who are deemed to be disloyal. When only opponents are arrested, but not those in office engaged in the very same practices, the hollow rhetoric of ‘rule of law’ only further keeps investors away, preventing the creation of growth, jobs, and tax revenues to pay for public service commitments,” Gonzales said. “Zambia does not need money. It needs leaders who govern for the people with integrity. It needs the political will to put Zambia first. But, of course, you don’t need me to say this. Dambisa Moyo, herself a daughter of the soil, made these same arguments 17 years ago.”
He said since President Hichilema and himself decided to commit to reset the U.S. – Zambia relationship last July, America had redoubled efforts to support robust Zambian agency, and availed billions of dollars to support tangible investment and reforms to catalyse Zambia’s success.
He said the US had offered expert support to inform reforms that would systematically benefit both the Zambian people and their many friends from around the world without bias or favour.
“Sadly, so many of our overtures and goodwill have been met with … to use the most persistent and notorious of the Zambian government’s responses … ‘Noted With thanks.'”
“But, appointing a Director General of the Anti-Corruption Commission who was actively under investigation by the ACC, and her admonishment to her intentionally under-resourced agency not to investigate senior government officials, only cripples hopes that clean business can be done.”Ambassador Gonzales said.
He asserted that the government had corruptly awarded Chinese owned AVIC the $650 million Lusaka-Ndola Dual Carriageway project. He added that the corruption of AVIC was well known.
“Even the Chinese government convicted AVIC’s Chairman to death for corruption. AVIC’s Chingola-Chililabombwe Road was washed out last month, its negligence disrupting Zambia’s trade with the region. AVIC’s fraud in a $320 million police housing tender in 2014 is well documented,” Gonzales said. “Despite that, this government ignored the competitive bid by renown Zambian investors only to award AVIC the $650 million Lusaka-Ndola Dual Carriageway project, subsidizing this notoriously fraudulent and corrupt company with $300 million from the public pension scheme. How does this happen? Can law-abiding investors do clean business here? Will donors be asked to backfill the loss when the pension money too is wiped out?.”
Gonzales said the American government was not going to standby and watch the Zambian government refuse to stop or hold accountable for theft of medicines his government had been assisting the Zambian government with.
“After years of pleading, I could no longer standby while the Zambian government refused to stop or take action to hold people accountable for the systematic and nationwide theft of U.S. provided medicines while the Zambian citizens for whom those were intended went without. One year later, not a single notable person has been arrested since last February. Not a single notable prosecution has even begun. After last year’s pause, we resumed almost all of our health assistance: over $400 million including over $75 million in medication,” Gonzales said. “We continue to pay the salaries for over 23,000 healthcare workers, as we have for decades. Such is the legacy of America’s support to the Zambian people. Now, I know there have been alarmist allegations recently. But let me be clear, any suggestion that the United States would withhold critical life-saving healthcare support from those Zambians whose lives and health depend on it unless we get critical minerals is disgusting and patently false!”
Ambassador Gonzales his government has sent technical advisors to help Zambia achieve development objectives.
However, Gonzales said he had struggled to get hold of the government officials in the last four months.
“It takes months to get a meeting that yields nothing. Officials draft policies they have no intention of implementing, invoking them in only speeches to sound like they are taking action. MOUs decay on the shelf among the others before the signing ceremony even ends, never to be implemented because the ministry won’t even meet to discuss implementation. Why? Because generations of Zambian officials and leaders gain from the dysfunction,” Gonzales said. “The non-responsiveness on our availed funding and efforts to truly build a Zambian-owned health system that serves the Zambian people is sadly the norm. The theater of commissioning a report to get a scandal out of the news cycle but taking no substantive action on accountability is all too common. Of course, the systematic theft of public resources is not unique to American-provided medicines.”
Gonzales revealed that the government had not only targeted him for removal from his role.
“Attacking the messenger who dares to name these dynamics out loud is not limited in targeting the U.S. ambassador and asking Washington for his removal. Today, 10% of my diplomats have family members who still haven’t received basic residency permits from the Zambian government. Several have received court summonses as a result. Like Zambians themselves experience, ZRA staff shake down my departing diplomats for fees that don’t apply to them too,” Gonzales said. “When elevated, their supervisors double down on the demand.
Zambia’s institutionalized and refined corruption does not only dissuade transparent and law-abiding investors from the United States. The inaction, corruption, and intimidation of opponents also harms American citizens, it undermines American organizations, NGOs, companies, and philanthropies.”
Gonzales said since October last year the US government had offered over $2 billion in additional health and economic assistance to Zambia. He stressed that his government was not going to accept empty promises and that the future needed to look different.
“The Zambian government must also increase Zambian funding, staffing, and genuine ownership of its systems. This is not to impose our will; it is the only way we know for Zambia to truly own a sustainable healthcare system and to enable robust growth. It’s the only way we know to ensure that system serves the people while finally breaking the cycle of foreign aid dependency. Since January, however, like with so many of our other overtures to the Zambian government, we have had effectively zero substantive engagement from Zambian officials to move these efforts forward,” Gonzales said “Our calls go ignored, questions unanswered, meetings cancelled, leaving us without even opportunities to speak, much less engage in substantive deliberations. Instead of continuing to languish without engagement, the actual funding under our Health MOU should have started this month. Instead, we have reached April 30 still cobbling together funds for mismatched projects without an implementation plan to guide us forward under Zambian leadership, much less a finalized MOU that guides our strategic approach.”
However, Gonzales said the US will not leave Zambians without access to ARVs. He said the US was ready to work with the government toward mutual obligations.
“We will not leave Zambians without access to ARVs. We are redoubling our support to ensure that babies are not born HIV-positive. But, against the unmitigated systematic theft of U.S. assistance, • Against the refusal by the Zambian government to engage and to own or enable a sustainable healthcare system that serves the people, • In an environment where only the most exceptional of American investors can do clean business,” Gonzales said. “And Where Zambian government officials often can scarcely be bothered to take meetings with American officials or companies, not to mention capture the billion dollars of its own money secreted out of the country to east Asia, or hold accountable the company that unleashes generations of cancer and birth defects onto the people… without fundamental change, as the American Ambassador to the Republic of Zambia, how can I ask American taxpayers, Congress, or President Trump to continue the massive aid budgets that have been the hallmark of our relationship for decades?”
Touching on the Sino-Metals pollution of the Kafue River, Amb Gonzales said last May, multiple senior government officials shared with him and confirmed that the government had a 500-page expert report detailing the irreversible harm and risk of generations of birth defects, cancers, heart and liver disease caused by carcinogenic heavy metals unleashed into the river ecosystem by last year’s Sino Metals tailing dam disaster.
“But my heart broke when on July 29th last year, one of the country’s senior most leaders vehemently denied that the government even had the report, much less would act on it until the polluter themselves provided it. I pleaded with her to take action to protect the Zambian people and I again offered U.S. assistance, which the Foreign Ministry had already formally declined,” said Amb Gonzales. “While so many American prospective investors leave, put off by bureaucratic drudgery, inaction, and corruption, the Zambian government recently approved Sino Metals to expand its operations. Did this happen in the face of Zambia’s myriad impediments, or because of them? Today, Sino Metals is scarring game management areas abutting the Kafue National Park. When that tailings dam breaks, I will not be alone shedding tears.”
