Delegates at the recently ended Southern Province Constitutional Convention proposed that Zambia adopts a federal system of governance. They amended the Preamble to the first draft constitution, dropping the words "devolved system of governance" and replacing it with the words "federal system of governance". The delegates believe the amendment will allow the local people to "manage their own resources in a more amicable manner".

This will be interesting because PF though Wynter Kabimba have already rejected the idea. The real issue with federalism is - of what sort? Zambia already has some element of federalism because at the basic level federal structures are any structures that exist at two distinct levels - the "central" and "local", each within a well defined scope so that it enjoys ...

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"As you may be aware, Zambia has a housing deficit of nearly 1.4 million units and the interest by our colleagues to invest in Southern Province and Choma in particular is most welcome... They have capacity to mobilise US$10 billion of investment in various projects in Southern Province..."

- Chileshe Mulenga

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Helen Zulu writes in the Times of Zambia that escalating mealie meal prices may be solved by increasing cassava production as a substitute for maize. It could help to stabilise the escalating mealie meal prizes as cassava has many advantages when compared with maize both from the agronomic perspective as well as its multiple economic uses. It is also relatively more drought tolerant than maize.

Cassava production has actually been growing rapidly since the early 1990s, as farmers have sought to diversify their food staple production out of maize and into cassava. The removal of heavy subsidies for maize production and marketing coupled with the government withdrawal of a guaranteed maize market, from the early 1990s onward, reduced incentives to grow maize, leading farmers to look for other ...

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Two more bye-elections are coming - and many more to come! The Supreme Court last week nullified the election of two MMD MPs for electoral malpractice.

Kapiri Mposhi MP Lawrence Zimba had won the High Court case but his opponent appealed to the Supreme Court, resulting in the removal of the MP. Judge Gregory Phiri said the High Court misdirected itself when it held that there were no electoral malpractices. Mr Zimba was present when Thandiwe Banda was distributing money to groups of women and was also actively involved in the distribution of money. More importantly the Judge said that it is was not necessary to establish that the majority of voters were not prevented from voting for a candidate of their choice. Simply preventing a few voters is electoral malpractice resulting in ...

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First Quantum Minerals Limited (FQM) will this year start constructing a US$230m (KR1.22bn) power line from Lusaka to Solwezi for its latest mine, Sentinel at Kalumbila. The 330 kilovolts transmission line would cover a distance of about 400 kilometres. The power line would tap power from the Tata / ZESCO owned 120 megawatts Itezhi-tezhi hydro-power station currently under construction. FQM is negotiating with ZESCO to agree construction arrangements.

FQM is investing more than $2 billion in Sentinel Mine which will be Africa's biggest copper mine with a capacity to produce more than 500, 000 tonnes of copper concentrates per year. The mine will be fully operational in the later part of 2014. It says the $250m investment in the power will be easily recovered under five years.

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By Chola Mukanga

Real poverty is intellectual. Poverty is not an absence of resources or money; rather, it results from an absence of knowledge. History has shown that empires that have dominated for some time have usually gone into decline or failed to tap into potential for lack of generation of new ideas. Economic historians have for some time been puzzled on why Portugal, so prosperous in the 15th century began to decline from thereafter. A lot of reasons can be put forward, but one common and unmistakable reason was the decline in the trade of ideas. In Francis Parry's 1670 observations, "the people are so little curious that no man knows more than what is merely necessary for him". A view echoed by the 18th Century visitor to Portugal, Mary Brearley, "the bulk of the people were ...

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Zambia attracted US$10bn worth of investment pledges in 2012, the highest ever recorded pledges in a single year. The figure exceeds the $4bn investment pledges made in 2011. exceeding the targeted $4 billion. The mining sector had the largest share with 40% of the pledges. Manufacturing sector and energy also performed well in terms of attracting investment. Interestingly, the pledges only amounted to 31, 000 worth of employment pledges underlying the difficulty of foreign direct investment actually creating jobs.

Zambia Development Agency (ZDA) attributes the jump in investment pledges to " improved investment climate and stability in major macro-economic indicators". The ZDA explanation for the sudden jump is clearly poor. There's no difference in investment climate between 2011 and ...

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Prof Clive Chirwa [Zambia Railways CEO] recently set out his new vision for Zambia Railways. Profoundly grateful that he has made this available to us - to aid wider debate on this critical issue.

EIZ Zambia Railway Reconstruction - Akapelwa Lecture by Clive Chirwa

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By Chola Mukanga

Agriculture is not only one of the most important economic sectors in the country, but it is also the most politically sensitive. 70% of our people live in rural areas and largely practise farming or fishing. The other reason is that it is heavily connected to the issue of land which inevitably draws in traditional leaders and other players. It's therefore comes as no surprise that many we have an infinite array of ideas on what should be done about to get our agriculture policy on track. Which is fine but we need to remember that not every voice adds value. It's therefore important we weigh the issues affecting this sector carefully.

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China Copper Mines Limited has won the go ahead to build a US$100 million (KR530m) copper leach plant on the Copperbelt. The Zambia Environmental management agency (ZEMA), says it has allowed China Copper Mines Ltd to proceed with its copper project in Fitula area about 12 kilometres South West of Chingola town on the Copperbelt.

The project will involve the development of the Fitula open copper pits to produce copper cathode from around five mineral waste dumps. It will leach 600,000 tonnes of ore material to produce about 3,000 to 5,000 tonnes of electrowon copper per annum and about 500 permanent jobs are expected to be created by the proposed project.

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