Word: zambian
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Your article "Nationalization in Zambia" [Aug. 22] brings out very clearly some of the dilemmas facing investors in that country in the light of President Kaunda's recent move in asking the owners of Zambian copper mines to negotiate the sale of 51% of their shares to the state...
...parties on the Lusaka diplomatic circuit, Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda often pointed to Vice President Simon Kapwepwe, his close friend since boyhood, and said fondly: "Look, there goes my revolutionary!" It was no casual sobriquet. A bearded, conspiratorial-looking firebrand who wears black and purple togas and carries an outsized walking stick, Kapwepwe was a militant nationalist leader as one of Kaunda's colleagues in the fight for independence from Britain. In a recent about-face, he became Kaunda's chief rival for political power. Last week Kapwepwe more than lived up to Kaunda's billing...
Last week Kaunda made it clear that Zambian ambitions have grown. Clad in his usual khaki bush suit, he told 400 cheering members of the ruling United National Independence Party that he was "asking" the owners of the mines to give 51% of their shares to the state. "I do not think," he said, "that the nation can achieve economic independence without acquiring full control of the existing mines...
...with a 51% mineral tax. The nationalized companies' holdings have a book value of about $784 million. Kaunda expects to pay shareholders for their loss entirely out of future copper profits. These are already so heavily taxed that even if dividends are maintained at their present level, the Zambian government can hope to realize only $5,000,000 a year from the two companies' $1.1 billion-a-year sales of copper. Thus the final payoff could be delayed for decades...
Zambia's greatest damage will probably be to itself. The country needs private investment capital, and, as New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller said on his recent South American tour, "investment capital likes to go where it is loved." Kaunda's action can only encourage potential Zambian investors to go elsewhere in search of affection...