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Zambia: management of markets through cooperatives By Kashiwa Lameck-General Secretary and Mike Chungu-National Coordinator Alliance For Zambia Informal Economy Associations (AZIEA) Since the early 90s, the Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD) government has religiously implemented the structural adjustment programmes of the World Bank, embarking on a route that has involved the privatisation of public companies. According to the Zambia Privatisation Agency, out of a portfolio of 289 companies, the agency has privatised 257 companies. This includes the copper mines that accounted for nearly 50 percent of the country’s GDP and over 90 percent of its foreign earnings (Chomba and Lungu, 2005). The privatisation programme has had terrible consequences that have left their toll on the labour market. With the overzealous implementation of the liberalisation programme, the country has witnessed an increase in casualisation of the labour force in the name of labour market flexibility and retaining international competiveness (NRI, 2004).
Privatisation of markets
The severe decline in social spending by Government since the 1980s, has affected the maintenance of markets and the infrastructure of the markets are in a deplorable condition. Yet markets have become big ‘industrial’ sites and are occupied by a diverse informal working population that is reminiscent of the economic boom of the 1960s and early 1970s.
The Government’s lack of capacity to award grants to local governments to improve the market infrastructure, is coupled with the failure by local authorities to provide quality services including water and sanitation, garbage collection and security. What has made matters worse is that the local authorities collect market levies on a daily basis and market traders contribute to the local government revenues. Zambia National Marketeers Association (ZANAMA), the biggest affiliate of the Alliance for Zambian Informal Economy Associations (AZIEA) has been lobbying government to let the association manage markets. In pursuit of this objective, there have been several meetings including meeting the State President to argue the case that Local Authorities, irrespective of increasing and collecting market levies, have lamentably failed to provide the services such as garbage collection, water supply security, etc, and that the association would do much better at service provision. AZIEA, being part of the wider and global social movement whose social orientation is for social democracy, as opposed to neo-liberalism, has not been in full support of outright privatisation of markets. This would entail using the modus operandi that the Government used in disposing of over 257 quasi-state firms. AZIEA and ZANAMA believe that the socially acceptable mode of privatisation of markets would be to transform the market management into cooperatives. There is however, need to get more information on co-operative management systems as may be prescribed by law, and look for best practice within and outside Zambia. To that effect, we proposed to commission a study to inform both AZIEA and ZANAMA. Engagement with the process As we were lobbying Government for market to be managed as cooperatives, the Republican President, Levy Patrick Mwanawasa, addressed the National Rally in Kitwe, and announced that the markets would be managed by market boards (Times of Zambia, April 17, 2005). To that effect, the Ministry of Local Government and Housing has announced the completion of the formulation of the guidelines for the management of market boards, albeit without the participation of the key stakeholders including ZANAMA and AZIEA. Government’s position is at variance with ZANAMA’s and indeed AZIEA’s position, and AZIEA is now exploring engaging government in discussion and debate to shift the position from market boards to co-operatives, thus: AZIEA in partnership with Streetnet International has engaged the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to provide consultancy on the possibilities of managing markets as cooperatives. The ILO cooperative coordinator for East, Central and Southern Africa, Mr Sam Philemon Mshiu, was in Zambia from July 18-27 2005 on a field visit to assess the current market management system and the associations’ capacities. His report will inform a forthcoming stakeholders’ workshop on suitable models of market management, including cooperatives, and best practices in market management – supported by StreetNet. We are hoping that after this workshop both AZIEA and ZANAMA will have an in depth understanding and will engage Government in meaningful social dialogue on marketing cooperatives to ensure that they play an economic role underpinned by social justice. |
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