Transport Minister Yamfwa Mukanga has confirmed that suspended Zambia Railways Managing Director Clive Chirwa has been retired in national interest.
“Yes we have retired him. We decided to do it in national interest. It was the best option,” Mr. Mukanga said.
‘Retired in national interest’ has become a far too familiar phrase every time an individual employed by government has been relieved of his duties. Whether all such people who are ‘retired in national interest’ are really handed their fate for the benefit of the nation is another story altogether. In the case of prof Chirwa it very frustrating to the rest of us, as the man had promised so much to the country as in how he was going to revamp the rail business in Zambia. What went wrong? Prof Chirwa was quoted in the post newspaper on January 18, 2013 as saying the Zambian rail system would surpass that of South Africa within 5 years. "We will bring in better trains, better passenger coaches and everything else, perhaps even better than South Africa. South Africa has yesterday's technology. We are bringing in new technology which will enable us move this country forward," he said. This was a very bold statement and citizens like me got excited at the prospect of such great infrastructure and service developments. I was especially excited having in mind that South Africa had as recently as 2010 improved their train systems as part of preparations for the soccer world cup 2010.
.jpg)
Zambia Railways was reborn in September 2012, after finance minister Alexander Chikwanda revoked a concession agreement for Rail Systems of Zambia. Some of the reasons the government gave for the cancellation of the concession included, failure to invest in the maintenance and renewal of both infrastructure and rolling stock, which had led to deterioration of the state-owned assets, an ‘unacceptable’ level of derailments and poor safety, including loss of life and property. Increased tariffs and the poor quality of service had seen a significant drop in rail use, with much traffic switching to road. RSZ had been awarded a 20-year concession to operate freight services on the ZR network connecting the Copperbelt mining region near the DR Congo border to the Zimbabwean border at Victoria Falls, along with a seven-year concession to run passenger trains. The appointment of Clive Chirwa to head the new era of ZR was thus received with glowing optimism around the country.
Clive Chirwa at the time of his appointment was really held in high esteem by a cross section of society in Zambia, owing to his rich CV. Like every man, he had a few critics and one news website described his CV as “a long life history paper”, and that he was nothing but a “car panel beater”. (http://www.zambianwatchdog.com/a-deeper-look-at-clive-chirwas-empty-cv/).
Whatever opinions we may all have, Clive Chirwa is an internationally acclaimed engineer in the field of crashworthiness, such that the British Royal Society gave him the title of Distinguished Professor of Crashworthiness. Wikipedia says, “Professor Clive Chirwa is a Distinguished academic in the field of Structural Crashworthiness and Impact loading engineering. He is the Chair of Automotive and Aerospace Structures at The University of Bolton, Bolton, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, England.”
What really happened at ZR then to necessitate Professor Chirwa’s ‘retirement in national interest’? The first information that came out of ZR only indicated that, Clive Chirwa had differed with some board members. As the story unfolded, the government dissolved the board to pave way for investigations into their conduct. On the day, the then minister of Transport, Christopher Yaluma, was announcing the suspension of the board, some board member held a press briefing where they dismissed their suspension and said they had actually indicated that they would resign. Was the suspension stage managed? We will never know as there are too many loose ends. The same evening Prof Clive Chirwa appeared on Muvi TV assignment programme and ZNBC Sunday interview. Interestingly, the interviews did little to help Clive Chirwa’s cause as he became a subject of ridicule on social media. Former first lady Maureen Mwanawasa asked on twitter, “Who employed Chirwa?” Laura Miti, an ex-Post columnist and educationist, twitted; “I hope president Sata is watching his man Chirwa sound like a real quack. So unconvincing. Reminds me of KK’s heaven on earth LOL.” “This Chirwa is smoking something lethal. 25% my foot! And the next CEO gets 25 then what????” she further mused, in citation of Prof Chirwa’s demand of 25 percent shares in ZR at the end of the contract as a term of reference.
In both interviews, he stressed the point that he was not in combat with all board member but some of them who were bent on frustrating his efforts. He accused the board of having been ‘wasteful’ by having more than 28 board meetings which were all unscheduled. The scheduled meeting was set for 30April at the end of the first quarter. Those 28 board meetings had apparently gobbled more than K 470, 000 in board members sitting allowances. Some of the ‘meetings’ for which allowances were paid were appointments to meet the PS or minister for 15 minutes while others were social gatherings at private homes. That is wasteful indeed, and Clive Chirwa was within his rights as CEO to direct that such payments be halted. This was the source of all the problems at ZR according to the learned Chirwa. Prof Chirwa also made mention of the success he had scored at ZR within a short period he was in charge. Chief among them was the exports to Congo and the new mining contract.
However in an earlier press conference, prof Oliver Saasa, one of the board members, had his own dossier of Clive Chirwa’s gross mismanagement at ZR. Among many crimes of professor Chirwa, was the excessive demand for a monthly salary of K 248,000. In addition former board members accused Prof Chirwa of undermining the authority of the board on several occasions. Five members of the Zambia Railways Limited Board, Mark Chona(chairman), Professor Oliver Saasa( vice-chairman), and members Geoffrey Mulenga, Irene Mbewe and Jonam Mwansa all catalogued differences with Prof Chirwa. The former board members also defended the number of board meetings held, by saying on most meetings; they were negotiating prof Chirwa’s conditions of service as his initial demands had been too exorbitant.
There were too many questions that did not have answers here.
1. Was this a case of Engineer lacking management & corporate governance skill to run a big organization?
2. Was it a case of inflated egos that couldn’t work together?
3. Was prof Chirwa in order, by under mining the board?
4. Was the board circumventing the powers of the CEO by trying to run the day to day operations of the company?
Many questions have been asked but very few answers given. One commentator in the allafrica.com magazine stated, “Prof. Chirwa was either an overly ambitious interloper who stepped on too many feet, or a dedicated reformer who was pushed out by those preserving the status quo mediocrity at the parastatal.”
Maybe Prof Chirwa would have revived ZR fully and made it vibrant because the man who succeeded him as CEO, has been basking in glory recently. It was announced on Monday,10th June 2013, that Zambia Railways limited had recorded a significant improvement in its performance from 53 metric tonnes cargo in the month of April to 69 metric tonnes in May creating total revenue of 3.3 million US Dollars. ZRL Chief Executive Officer Dr. Muyenga Atanga said the steady progress had not been without challenges caused by the dilapidated state of infrastructure. Dr. Atanga said the dilapidated rail system has reduced the cargo capacity from 70 percent to 20 percent.
Personally, I feel the problems at ZR were born from the appointment system. The Minister appointed the board, but the President appointed the Chief Executive Officer. The normal procedure to follow is that the Minister in consultation with the President as head of Cabinet was supposed to appoint the board and the board was supposed to appoint the chief executive officer after advertising the position and interviewing all potential candidates. This would have also meant that the conditions of service would have been in place before a CEO is appointed from the interviewed applicants. This would have gone a long way in promoting Good Corporate Governance, which is the fulcrum of sustainability of any company and earns it unrivalled reputation in the global market. There is a strong linkage between effectiveness and Corporate Governance quality, efficiency and effectiveness of the board. The ZR board and the CEO did not have a proper structure of who was reporting to the other, how often the reporting was meant to happen and all this stemmed from the manner of the appointment.
It is important that there be a tracking system in each company's corporate governance structure to enable early detection of bad behaviour. Waiting for last minute or after effect events is costly as has proved to be the case at ZR.
In concluding I’d like to put up a post I wrote as a status update on Facebook on 23 April 2013 at the time the whole ZR drama unfolded. The post attracted so much debate and I decided to reproduce it here.
“It is VERY shocking and saddening that the Zambian public opinion court has convicted prof Chirwa for all kind of things ranging from unpatriotic, greedy, incompetent, unrealistic and all.
This is a man who merely complained to his board for wasting so much money on unnecessary & unscheduled board meetings. KR470,000 (K470 million) as allowances in 28 board meetings between January and April. He further complained about the board's hands on approach of running the day to day activities of the company.
Some board members went to meet the minister or PS for 10 minutes and want sitting allowances for such meetings. “
- Facebook status update posted April 23, 2013.
Engervell Musonda i also think he is greedy, how can he want over 100,000 as monthly salary?
Ruben Lungu You pipo u should learn to appreciate the proffetionals chirwa as the desire to turn things around my father used to work there zambia railways neds facelift not with those greedy board members mr chirwa we re behind u.
Leonard Nonde My friends 100,000 is nothing. Problem is that when you are used to getting small salaries you think that is what everyone gets. Find out what the MD of Stanchart, Zanaco, NAPSA or Lafarge gets. You will be shocked! You need to pay for great ideas otherwise you continue wallowing in mediocrity or getting bazungus to come and do the work for you.
Engervell Musonda come on guys we are talking about zambia railways here. you can't compare with stanchart, zanaco or lafarge, these companies make money for such huge salaries.
Leonard Nonde The last time I checked, Zambia Railways was not a Charity! Its a very profitable entity that was ruined by mis management. It stands to make millions if it is run properly as is evident from the revenues it is now getting from the mines!
Graham Sianjase What the Prof. is getting is just one of the issues that has brought up the dust. There are allegations of him not following procedures when carrying out his duties and that is likely to land him in problems. No doubt he has great ideas, but even the best can be let go if they don't follow laid-down procedures.
Akatama Muteto there is no smoke without fire. i have my reservations on him,a guy who comes with an offer to get 1/4 of the company after 5yrs and leave us the remaining 13milion zambians to share the remaining 3/4 is pretty.......
Leonard Nonde The man made an offer to use the patents of his firm to offer training to ZRL staff to the board and the board turned it down! He never pursued it any further and the matter was closed. Is that corruption?
Ruben Lungu Let us stop pipo to be on boards when they ve failed on other boards to bring tangible facelift.
Graham Sianjase I like the brilliant plans the Prof. has for ZRL, but it is unfortunate he was not in sync with the board - which is vey vital. Anyway, there are just allegations for now and hopefully the ACC will clear him.
Akatama Muteto @Leonard,he should have never asked in the first place,it is against Good corporate governance any professional will tell you that. it is like someone asks you to sleep with your wife and then after that they say i asked and they refused and i ddnt pursue it further.
Leonard Nonde Prof Sasa "Zambia's economic guru" as they call him. I wonder just what economic ideas he has given the nation to earn him such an accolade. I checked all over the internet, the man has no single internationally recognised publication but he is a professor. Who gave him the title and why? Such are the people who were on the ZRL board and I am sure they sit on so many other boards where they make their money from just sitting and not providing stratergic direction to institutions. If you cross paths with such people, you will never have peace in Zambia.
Akatama Muteto @Leonard,he should have never asked in the first place,it is against Good corporate governance any professional will tell you that. it is like someone asks to sleep with your wife and then after that they say i asked and they refused and i ddnt pursue it further.
Leonard Nonde @Akatama You cannot compare the two. He should be excused to think that his Intellectual Property should have benefited Zambia Railways
Akatama Muteto @Leonard,he should not have asked in the 1st place. he knows about good corporate governance but when he comes to zambia he wants to start acting primitive and ignoring what made the developed country he came from developed. transparency.
Leonard Nonde I think the man was transparent enough. I am not so sure if transparency built the empires in the developed world, its the ideas of hard working men and women and for your own information, mostly these were not ethical, like colonialism. Transparency is a good thing and I am very certain that the man is transparent.
Ruben Lungu Woow patrice u ve sparked the serious debate.
Akatama Muteto i personally dont know him and i have never spoken to anyone who worked with him whereever he came from,by virtual of him being human,i know he is VERY capable of erring like many educated highly accomplished men before have. but i do know that he shouldnt have asked in the 1st place. so should we allow all CEO's and people of influence to be pushing their own interests into contracts in the name of the goodof the nation. then why are we haunting ruphia banda if prof. chirwa can propose to do the same. he is a man and he can err and when he does lets as say he has erred. i mean if u know a taxi from town to woodlands is 50pin nd the cb tells you it is 150pin,will u trust the cab driver?!? This man wanted 1/4 of ZRL!?! just for 5yrs of service,imagine what he would have taken if he was ever president of Zambia
Patrice Nambayo Aongola Akatama, even you if offered a job you will give your own counter offers in line with what your expectations are. It is common trend world wide for Chief executives to demand a percentage of the shares in a time period. Milupi was CEO for Copperbelt energy and at the time he left he was given so many shares. Chirwa put his demand and was told RSZ the limited company was no more where such shareholding was possible, instead the ZR was 100% owned by government and Chirwa accepted the position of employee as CEO and his pay demands were reduced by over Kr 100,000 (K 100M). I think this is magnanimity of the highest order. The biggest problems at ZR is not prof Chirwa but conflict of interest between two professors. Apart from sitting on boards and giving his opinions as news to ZNBC on economic matters once in a while. I am yet to appreciate Prof Sasaa. His biggest contribution though has been that as an economics lecturer at UNZA many Zambians as students have benefited. Dr Chigunta has also lectured for a long time at UNZA but i dont think when he was economic advisor to RB did a good job. Economic theorists are not better placed to take ZR forward now. You can not have a board that wants to run the day to day activities of a company, what is management there to do then
Akatama Muteto @patrice,even if the pope did something wrong,it will still be wrong. i am not judging Chirwa based on the other members of the boards judgment or qualifications. i am judging him based on international codes of corporate governance. his initial request was wrong and should have never been made. put aside the titles and look at the issues at hand. so why are we prosecuting Ruphia banda and his sons while we are willing to over look Prof. chirwas attempt to do the same,and when the board stops him they become the villians. so are you saying that all CEO's and people in positions of influence should be tendering for key contracts(trust me they will be able to justify that it is in the based interest of the nation). what makes professor Chirwa so special that he can ignore good corporate governance and should be praised for it?
Patrice Nambayo Aongola Akatama, His was a request based on the knowledge that RSZ was a private limited company and this happens everywhere in the world where CEO get a percentage share at the end of the tenure. I gave you an example of Milupi and CEC. Once he was made aware that Zr was 100% GRZ owned and that no such share holding existed, he didnt pursue it further but instead accepted to be an employee of position CEO. This was at the time of negotiation 4 days after Chirwa landed in Zambia. It is definitely not an issue of how he has differed with the board. he has differed with the board on the FACT that they want sitting allowances for non scheduled meeeting so that they make more money. These same selfish individuals are on several boards. ZAMTEL, ZESCO, ERB etc. same people.
Akatama Muteto so he didnt know that govt had taken over the company he wanted to become CEO over?!? nowander he doesnt know jack about corporate gvernance,he must be a professor in some science. he is even worse than i thought. He was the topic of all those many meetings. i wonder why they just didnt fire him,how can the CEO go on 15days unauthorised leave,if i am not wrong if you stay away from work for over week without telling your employees why,that is reason for instant dismissal. oh ,i forgot we are dealing with Professor Chirwa,the normal and acceptable way of doing things doesnt apply to him. and i was talking about him wanting to get a company he had interests in to train ZRL,that was wrong!
Nchindikwa Nankamba Nangufye you ask for a percentage 25% was too much.even for negotiation purposes. Then K72m per month for rentals is too much for one person. Kuli twalya again ku ZR e bwafya.
