Friday, 5 Apr 2002

KITWE, Zambia

Another early day — I was at the office by 7:50 a.m. I picked up the paper to read the headline news that the Zambian parliament finally approved retirement benefits for former Republican President Dr. Fredrick Chiluba.

Chiluba’s benefits have been a major source of controversy ever since he left office at the beginning of January. Chiluba designed his own benefits package without seeking parliamentary authorization; as a result, three MPs from the opposition party challenged the legality of the package. The court ordered that he surrender all the benefits, which he did. Now it seems a package has finally been approved.

After reading the news, I rushed to court, where I was representing CBE in a matter in which a supplier failed to replace defective office equipment that was under warranty. Happily, the court ruled in our favor.

A polluted river in Ndola.

I was planning to head out to Ndola next, but the farmers called to request more time to finish the socio-economic questionnaires we distributed earlier this week. The questionnaires will be used to determine how much compensation the farmers will receive from the mining company that polluted the local water source with tailings. To give the farmers more time, we agreed to put off my trip until tomorrow.

Shortly thereafter, a colleague phoned to inform me that the Environmental Assessment Report for the Copperbelt Environment Project was available on CD-ROM. A copy was waiting for me, so I agreed to pick it up later in the afternoon. CEP is a joint project of the Zambian government and the World Bank; its mission is to clean up environmental disasters left behind when mine owners like the Anglo American Corporation refuse to take responsibility for the messes they have made.

Last year, I was sub-contracted to assist the firm that conducted the environmental assessment for CEP. I provided them with baseline data on Copperbelt as well as information about Zambian law. Later, I was appointed by the government to sit on the CEP steering committee. Last week, the committee adopted the World Bank Mission Project Appraisal and signed the Aide Memoir for the project, paving the way for cleanup to begin in September.

I might have kept working on the CEP project this afternoon, except that my colleague Charles Muchimba, the director of research for the national office of the Mineworkers Union of Zambia, called to invite me to his home. Just a few hours before last month’s union elections, Charles collapsed from a life-threatening bout of cerebral malaria. The illness cost him a possible position as general secretary of the union, but I was relieved to hear that he was feeling better and in the mood for a visit. Sometimes friends are more important than work; I left the office, went to his house, and finished off my week in his company.