KK FLYING HIGH: Awarding Zambia�s first president Dr. Kenneth Kaunda the Grand Order of the Eagle at a special State House ceremony, President Levy Mwanawasa said that through his fight against colonialism and more recently against AIDS, KK had earned international respect and admiration, and was a �source of pride to Africa as a whole.� This award, which follows an equally illustrious one made recently in South Africa to the elder statesman by President Thabo Mbeki, highlights the rise and rise of Dr. Kaunda in recent years. The nadir of his political career came when he was gaoled by his successor Frederick Chiluba, for alleged complicity in the failed coup of 28 October 1997. His appointment last year to the Presidents in Residence chair at Boston University confirmed his star status. Now 79, KK is the first leader to take up the Lloyd G. Balfour appointment. Mr. Balfour has said he hopes it will foster democracy in Africa, showing leaders that there is life after office, and encouraging them to give up their presidencies democratically. (Times, Mail, Post, 15 Jan; archives)

 

A SCENE FROM HELL: Visiting a paediatric unit in Lusaka, the UN Secretary-General�s special AIDS envoy Stephen Lewis reported seeing infants �clustered, stick-thin, three and four to a bed. We were there for 45 minutes. Every 15 minutes another child died, awkwardly covered by a sheet, and then removed by a nurse while the ward filled with the anguished weeping of another mother. A scene from hell.�� Reporting on his visit to Zambia, he said the new presidency had �qualitatively changed� the country�s response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Those who previously had watched it unfold �with a kind of pathological equanimity,� must be held to account. (Post, 19 Jan)

 

BANK GIFTS $100,000 FOR CHILDREN�S WARD: The Standard Chartered Bank has spent $1000,000 refurbishing the children�s wing at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka. At its commissioning, Standard�s outgoing managing director John Janes said it was part of the bank�s long-term support for government in the areas of youth, health and education. (Post 16 Jan)

 

HOPE FOR ROAN ANTELOPE: The government announced that it had received bids from four mining companies interested in buying RAMCOZ, the shattered remains of a once-proud and highly profitable company that was killed off under the Binani brothers, whose company bought Roan Antelope from ZCCM in 1997 and went into receivership three years later. The last straw was a drastic reduction in the mine�s power supply by the Copperbelt Energy Corporation, which was owed $10m by the Binanis. Its 5,000 workers were left unpaid, as were suppliers of equipment and water. RAMCOZ was asset-stripped. The Binani brothers allegedly continue to operate from a luxury property in St. John�s Wood, London. (Zana 20 Jan; archives)

 

IRAQ OFFERS OIL: To solve Zambia�s fuel requirements, the Zambian government is in discussion with the governments of Kuwait and Iraq for permanent and direct supplies of oil, said Energy and Water Development Minister Kaunda Lembalemba. The contract for the current supplier, Trans Saharan Trading, is coming to an end and according to a parliamentary committee report on energy, environment and tourism, Iraq and Kuwait had offered oil, but had �demanded that the private sector be cut out of the process.� (Times, 8 Jan)

 

$200M FOR RAILWAYS CONCESSION: Zambia Railways (ZR) has been concessioned for $200m for 20 years to New Limpopo Property Investments-Spoornet of South Africa. Meanwhile 12 people were seriously injured when a goods train carrying sulphuric acid in Kabwe town centre hit a Lusaka-bound minibus. Eyewitnesses said the minibus ignored the ringing railways signals, but pointed out that motorists were misled because �they are always ringing.� (Mail 8 Jan, Post, 2 Feb)

 

CHURCH PROVIDES FAMINE RELIEF: The Roman Catholics� Zambia Episcopal Conference has provided $190, 000-worth of food for Zambia�s vulnerable groups including orphans, the elderly and the terminally ill. This was announced by ZEC bishops Telesphore Mpundu and Paul Duffy. Bought locally to help small-scale farmers, the food includes white maize, beans, sorghum cowpeas, cassava cuttings and sweet potato vines. (Times, 30 Jan)

 

GM FOODS UPDATE: The World Food Programme (WFP) is shifting the genetically modified food rejected by Zambia to Malawi, where GM foods are acceptable if milled. Meanwhile the American government reports that since the beginning of 2002 it has given or pledged more than $278m to help feed Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Lesotho. In Kitwe, a man was shot dead while stealing maize belonging to Colwyn Breweries. (Post, 8 Jan; Times, 19, 30 Jan)

 

POLICE NAB �INVISIBLE MAN�: After three months on the run from the corruption Task Force and Interpol, fugitive former finance minister Katele Kalumba was captured near his farm at Chiengi, in the Luapula province. According to The Times of Zambia and to the Johannesburg Sunday Times,� police spokesman Brenda Mutemba said the ex-minister was found hiding under a bush; she claimed he had evaded the� police by using charms which made him invisible. He pleaded not guilty to theft by public servant of K3bn and was remanded in custody until 17 February. (Times, Mail, Post,� Sunday Times, 7-26 Jan)

TWO AIRCRAFT PRANG IN MFUWE: ZAF pilot Lt. Col. Larry Chintu, personal pilot to the president, crashed in Mfuwe when his helicopter�s tail rotor failed. He was accompanied by a co-pilot and three passengers. Lt. Col. Chintu had gone to Mfuwe to rescue a retired ZAF colonel who works for a private firm and was flying delegates to Mfuwe to attend a conference when an engine failed. No one in either accident was seriously hurt but the helicopter was a write-off. (Post, 3 Feb)

 

CORRUPTION BLITZ: The suspended managing director of Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia, Dr. Chula Kalima, has denied involvement in a scam in which $1.8m from the NCZ account was provided last year by government to revamp the ailing company but only $160,000-worth of materials was purchased. The balance of the money has been withdrawn as letters of credit from Zambia National Commercial Bank and Amalgamated Bank of South Africa. Civil servants are among those being investigated. Meanwhile former secretary to the treasury David Diangamo, former director general of the intelligence services Xavier Chungu and five senior civil servants are being charged with 59 counts of abuse of authority and theft by public servant. And the Task Force investigating other instances of the plunder of Zambia�s resources have seized houses belonging to former legal affairs minister Vincent Malambo and former presidential affairs minister Eric Silwamba.� (Mail, Times, Post, 7-26 Jan)

 

INDO-ZAMBIA BANK IN THE PINK: Declaring a 40 per cent dividend worth K540m for 2002/2, managing director Alok Misra said the bank had become �a commercial success and a profitable enterprise.�� Deposits had exceeded K200bn, he disclosed.� Handed a K270m dividend cheque by board chairman Oriene Moyo, Zambia�s delighted finance minister Emmanuel Kasonde said the handsome return on government�s 40 percent investment was a tribute to the bank�s outstanding management. (Post, 27 Jan)

 

ZANACO, ZESCO, ZAMTEL REMAIN PARASTATALS: Zambia�s key� banking, electricity and telephone companies are to remain in government hands. President Mwanawasa has taken this decision after vociferous public protest against further privatisation and despite objections from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. (Mail, 30 Jan)

 

PRAYING FOR DELIVERANCE: Lusaka police arrested eight suspects believed to be behind a spate of robberies and recovered an AK47 in a Matero township church, where some of the gang were found praying. A robber nicknamed �Snatcher�, who received a police bullet wound during a failed raid on a Lusaka shop,� had led the police to the church. (Times, 7 Jan)

 

EXCHANGE RATE, 5 February: �1 = K8, 140. 33

 

Some 160 people, many of them friends from her days in Zambia, attended the funeral on 5 February at St. Andrew�s Church, Ham Common, Richmond, of Edith Sibongile Grenville-Grey. A highly qualified social worker and the daughter of a Zulu Methodist minister, Edith was posted to Kitwe from the Transkei in 1961 as the Copperbelt organiser of the YWCA. She and Wilfrid Grenville-Grey were married in 1963, and in 1965 he became head of the Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation in Kitwe, where Edith continued her groundbreaking work for the YWCA. They moved to Britain in 1971. The funeral and later a gathering at Pembroke Lodge, Richmond Park were attended by many of the Dlamini family. Chief mourners among them were Edith�s sisters Flavia Buthulezi, Khushu Dlamini - Matron of Kitwe Central Hospital for many years - and Edith�s youngest sister, Zanele Mbeki, who worked for� Nchanga Mines as a social worker in the 1960s and is the wife of the President of South Africa. Wilfrid Grenville-Grey attended with his sister and brother-in-law, the Duke and Duchess of Richmond and Gordon, and members of their family. Edith is survived by her children, Jonathan, Thandi and Peter Thulanig, and by her grandchildren Emily and Thoba.

Mark Harford, 33, an IT specialist with the BBC who was born in Lusaka, is to run in the 26-mile London Marathon on 13 April to raise funds for the Zambia Society Trust�s fund for AIDS orphans. A member of the Ealing, Southall and Middlesex Athletic Club, he reckons he has a good chance of making it in under three hours. If you would like to sponsor him � and perhaps offer a bonus if he gets his time down as low as he hopes � please send a cheque (with that note of encouragement!) made out to the Zambia Society Trust, to Mark at 36 Drayton Avenue, London, W13 0LF; mark.harford@bbc.co.uk

�Kaunda�s Gaoler,� Cyril Greenall�s interesting memoir of 25 years as a district officer � which included a period as district commissioner in Kabompo, where Dr. Kaunda was restricted - is now available from publishers IB Tauris, 6, Salem Road, London W2 4BU. 270pp, �24.50; ISBN: 186048622. Telephone: 020 7243 1225;� fax 020 7423 1226; sales@ibtauris.com

A critique of Mr. Greenall�s book will appear next month in the spring issue of Spotlight on Zambia.