Lusaka Revisited

By Christian Kingombe, 9th September 2017.

At the age of Montesquieu foreign observers used letters to express themselves on a variety of subjects when visiting far away foreign countries. But since we are living in the second decade of the twenty first century, I will use the blog format to provide a series of social commentaries on what I have observed during my first month in Lusaka after revisiting the capital of Zambia almost 13 years since I last had the pleasure of living in this land-linked country in the heart of Africa and just south of the border of my father’s country the DRC. While the Coffee Culture café in Kabulonga where I am writing the beginning of the blog isn’t anything like Le Café Procope (or just simply, Le Procope) in Paris, from where Montesquieu might have written his “Persian Letters”, the leather chair where I am seated is comfortable and the weather quite enjoyable, despite the lack of inspirational history and atmosphere here in this place which didn’t even exist, when I last lived in this neighbourhood of the Zambia’s very young capital (1935) located at an elevation of about 1,279 meters above sealevel.

Back on the African continent – what an electoral month

During my first week back in Africa I experienced from the calmness of Lusaka two important presidential elections for the Tripartite Region in respectively Kenya and Rwanda. In the latter case even Saddam Hussein, Khaddaffi or Robert Mugabe would have been proud of such a convincing electoral result. In the former for the first time in the post-colonial era the Supreme Court has for the first time accepted an opposition party’s petition thereby standing up against electoral fraud by declaring the results void. That is not all, during the same week the SG of the Commonwealth mediated between the incumbent Zambian President and the Opposition Leader who had been thrown in prison for treason for taking the same stance as the opposition leader in Kenya. Fortunately, the Commonwealth has helped salvaged Zambia’s great but still fragile democracy, thereby keeping the social peace to prevent this electoral crisis spiralling out of control. Zambia is indeed surrounded by neighbours where democracy has a whole different meaning, so what we have here in Zambia shouldn’t be taken for granted, but instead nurtured and taken good care of by all citizens and political parties, and avoid playing with fire for personal gains.

Finally, Africa’s second longest serving Hippo has stood down after “only” 38 years in power, it is true it’s not a long time when compared to the Queen of England and Head of the Commonwealth. And even if there wasn’t a proper regime change, it’s still a step in the right direction, which hopefully will have a positive spill-over effect on neighbouring DRC, where the government is still in breach of Constitution and the New Year Peaceful Political Transition Deal. So truly a very mixed picture of where democracy is heading on the African continent, which I was faced with from the beginning of my stay in the COMESA Region’s capital Lusaka.

A different beginning: First Impressions when coming to Zambia

When getting out of the airplane 1st of August 2017 the first impression was that nothing had changed except for the fact that I arrived with Ethiopian Airlines, whereas I in September 2003 had arrived with British Airways, which if I recall it correctly only flew 2-3 times per week to Lusaka from London. You will be forgiven for thinking that nothing had changed since our flight from Addis Ababa was the only international airline parked on the whole airport! But I was informed that today Lusaka Airport receives several other additional international companies flying to Lusaka such as: Emirates, South African Airlines and Namibian Airlines. But they were nowhere to be seen when we got off the plane in the same way as in 2003. We had to walk down the stairs to the tarmac in order to enter into the same old out of date airport. But to the right-hand side of the old terminal, I could see the on-going construction work of what will become Lusaka’s new contemporary international terminal if the Chinese contractor and the sponsors behind this important infrastructure projects otherwise can get their act together.

The new situation was also that I didn’t have to hassle with the Zambian Mission to the UN in Geneva to get a Tourism Visa as I had too prior to my PhD fieldwork in Zambia in 2005. But that is another story. This time around you can pay the US$50 VISA at the customs in the airport itself and even by using a VISA credit card. That is progress. What is not progress is being unnecessarily delayed standing in the diplomatic queue witnessing the same farce as in Tunis Airport where certain Embassy Staff think that they are entitled to jump the queue because they have a diplomatic passport. They asked some guy with fancy shoes – not even wearing an official airport uniform – to jump the line on their behalf so that they can get through in a seamless fashion at the expense of the rest of us. What a disgraceful and unapologetic behaviour which I can’t understand is being tolerated still?

Even though the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 787-8 (788) was the only plane in the whole airport, it still took the airport staff ages to bring our 4 bags through the belt. After we finally had collected our bags before leaving the luggage area we had to show an official the flight tickets demonstrating that the bags belonged to us.

The first thing that I noticed in 2017 contrary to 2003 where all kinds of people not necessarily airport staff were walking around in complete disrespect of airport security on the tarmac, in front of customs and at the luggage area was that the indulgence of this behaviour was no longer the case, what a relief! When stepping outside the exit the first thing that meets your eyes is the ATMs of three different banks: Barclays, ZANACO, and FNB. And the ATMs worked! Moreover, you would have to your right-hand side the choice of buying a pay-as-you-go MTN sim card, so that you could get connected even before you reach the city centre. In 2003 I chose Zambian Airtel, not in the airport though, since MTN hadn’t entered the telecom market in Zambia at the time.

When I first stepped out of the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport in September 2003 I was met by the senior ILO driver who gave me 3 pages of security instructions to read for my own safety. Not a very nice way to start your stay in a foreign country reading about all the existing dangers. In 2017 my wife and I took the Taj Pamodzi shuttlebus for the price of $US30 per person!

As the reader probably has guessed by now, in 2003 I left my then girlfriend back in Geneva, Switzerland. Whereas this time around I had the immense pleasure of travelling the long way from Geneva to Lusaka, via Frankfurt and Addis Ababa, with my wife. That of course make the very long journey that more enjoyable than what it otherwise would have been even though we left our kids behind with their grandmother.

What surprised me was that the tarmac road leading from the airport down to the T4 (Great Eastern Road) hadn’t changed at all from what it looked like in 2003. Although it is still a tarmac road, the road is still very narrow (eroding at the side some places), many potholes have been badly repaired, no streetlights either. Whoever is responsible seem to forget that the first impressions of tourists, business people and investors are these first 3-4 km on the road towards Lusaka, which apparently was built in connection with an AUC summit hosted by Zambia, because the previous road was in an even worse condition as well as an over-dimensioned chicken sculpture. We had to drive down to the first of many roundabouts before I saw the first progress compared to my 2003 arrival. At that roundabout, I saw the first of many new malls that have been built in Lusaka since the second new mall – Arcades – was built during my first stay in 2004. But I will return to the topics of the malls later.

Taj Pamodzi Hotel

The Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) is still the owner of Taj Pamodzi (since 1979) today (one of 101 Taj hotels across 64 destinations of which only two are located on the African continent) one of Lusaka’s very few 5-star hotels. It is still located in the centre of Zambia’s capital Lusaka, within easy reach of my new workplace the COMESA Headquarters at Ben Bella Road, where I coincidentally also worked in 2003 when the ILO was located in the building just next door. Thanks to my objections to the quality of the state of the mouse infested building the ILO moved out shortly after I had left the ILO, but that is another story. Both my wife and I preferred this hotel to the other 5-star hotel InterContinental despite the fact that quality amenities and the elegant design is more or less the same as it provided to its guests in 2003, where I spent 1 month in the hotel before I found a house to stay in. Thanks to my wife’s heroic effort it took me only 2 weeks to move out of the hotel this time around. The atmosphere was just as welcoming as in the past to the great satisfaction of my wife which ensured her a comfortable and relaxing stay while I was working during the day time. All the four different rooms that we occupied during our two weeks at the Taj Pamodzi were indeed beautifully furnished and well-lit rooms. However, the problems with the balconies turning towards the conference centre of the hotel is they are unusable because of the sheer noise coming from the air-condition system of the conference centre. Hence our request to move to the other side. There was also a problem with some noise coming from I think it was the air conditioner. The third room we had problems with the smoke coming from another room through the ventilation system. But the fourth and final room was to our great satisfaction, with a splendid view from the 7th floor over the city of Lusaka and the distant sky-scrapers at the Cairo road, which I shall return to shortly. My wife truly enjoyed other excellent facilities at the Taj Pamodzi Hotel including the restaurant, the fitness centre, outdoor pool although it was being repaired (besides it was too cold in early August to swim, but still enjoyable to relax next to the pool under the not too hot sun at this time of the year), and a comprehensive business centre (way too expensive to print from there). There is also free onsite parking (where I parked the car I had borrowed from a former ILO colleague, who rapidly came to collect their car when I returned it after my visit to Livingstone, because they said it’s not safe to leave the car at the hotel parking!) and a complimentary breakfast is included, which we enjoyed very much because its wide variety of choices was even wider than what we had experienced at Avani Hotel in Livingstone). Despite some of the negative issues I highlighted regarding the rooms, my wife and I did enjoy a more than satisfactory stay at Pamodzi just as I had done in 2003.

Lusaka Skyline

When I in 2003 had stayed on the 8th floor of this nine-storey hotel building, in 2017 I started by staying on the 5 floor in a room this time turning in the opposite direction and then gradually moving to the 7th floor after a short stay on the 6th floor. When you step out on the balcony and take a good look at Lusaka at first sight nothing has really changed. The city is still as green as it was in 2003 with trees everywhere, in some way what the great cities in Europe increasingly will look like in the future. But the problem this fast-growing capital of Zambia is facing is the huge rural-urban migration influx. For how long can Lusaka afford to continue to extend its boundaries rather than start building towers as is down in major cities like Singapore, which I recently have visited. I am astonished how few apartment blocks that exist in Lusaka, and the few which exist are only 2-3 stories tall! The consequence of this I will return to in the section below addressing the serious traffic situation.

On top of this, the city is almost still as dark at night as it was in 2003. Unlike Gaborone which I have just visited, there is only street lights on the D152 passing by State House, and Lusaka Golf Club (odd since no-one lives there besides the President of the Republic).

The relatively tall towers down at Cairo Roads are more or less exactly the same as in 2003, although one Chinese entrepreneur is still in the process of refurbishing one of the old towers, which he has turned into a shopping mall and a hotel I believe. The other towers still look like products from the 1970s, perhaps with the only difference that Zambia’s tallest tower now is called the Samsung tower because of a huge Samsung logo "decorating" the top of the building. A pity given what is happening with this conglomerate’s senior management in South Korea at the moment.

Perhaps the only real difference to the Lusaka skyline compared to what I witnessed from my 8th floor room in 2003 was the unexpected presence of several minarets? I’m surprised because the former Zambian President Frederic Chiluba’s mausoleum is built like a church in honour of his vision of ensuring that Zambia remains a Christian Nations. So, I was shocked to find out that the tallest of these Minaret’s actually is taller than the Cathedral of Lusaka, and hence now appears as Lusaka's new landmark? That is not all, I have been informed by several sources that several of these many new mosques that is springing up all over Lusaka are not only located in residential areas unlike in France, where they at least are located at the periphery of the towns like in Nantes, but they are also allowed to use the Minaret’s just as loudly as in Marrakesh’s Medina to call for prayers five time during the day, much to the nuisance of the Christian neighbours to these mosques! It makes you wonder who in the first place granted them the permission to carry out all these infringements, including the construction of Islamic schools. I have no answer to that, but what I noticed driving home the other day along the road leading to State House is that Saudi Arabia currently is constructing a huge new Embassy. Last year Saudi and Zambian representatives discussed bilateral cooperation in agriculture, grain trade and investment. So, let’s hope that this is only a reflection of closer south-south trade ties between these two countries. My only concern is that Saudi Arabia might also be exporting its fundamentalist version of Islam. That fear is derived from the appearances of the men and women frequenting those mosques. But the biggest shock came last weekend when I at Spur Restaurant at Manda Hills saw a large Zambian (not of Asian descent, but indigenous) Family where all the women and girls at a very early age were dressed the way they are forced to dress in Saudi Arabia and Iran. If the Government of Zambia doesn’t keep an eye out of this very worrying trend, at least I was happy to learn that the US has a huge Embassy located at the same road as where I live in Lusaka, and most likely already is keeping the Zambian Government informed about what is going on...

Traffic, Road Safety, taxis and mini-busses…

While religion for both Christians as well as Muslims alike seem to be a much more important part of life down here in Zambia than it is in Europe, which according to some lucid observers might eventually lead to the death of Europe, the number one topic of conversation in Lusaka is not about faith but rather about traffic related issues.

This section is based upon me driving around Lusaka, first in taxis, then by means of the COMESA Shuttlebus for new staff and COMESA’s land-rovers, and finally my own car during the last 3 days.

I have now lived in Lusaka for one month. During the first two weeks, I took the hotel taxi from Taj Pamodzi to COMESA’s Headquarters on Ben Bella Road at the round about where the road from Kafue (T2) becomes Cairo Road, price tag Zambian Kwacha (ZMK) 70.00, and back again to Pamodzi this time with a more informal uber-like taxi without any taxi paint, price tag ZMK60. Anyone spotted the price difference. Apparently, the Taj Pamodzi & Airport port taxis with taxi paint on the car are licensed. Hence, road worthy and clean inside, something that can’t be said about most of the informal uber taxis, which consequently are cheaper, but I wouldn’t necessarily say less safe if you find the right cap. And when you do, you should get their phone number because you never know when you need a reliable taxi in Lusaka. No, the motorized vehicles, which are a real menace to society are the so-called mini-busses, whose drivers are beyond pedagogical reach when it comes to obeying the official traffic rules. They respect no one, not even their scared clients, but themselves and their own rules, to get from point A to point B as fast as possible by any means. Evidently, the "poor" pedestrians seeking to cross the street do so at their own peril, because no-one stops for them to let them pass in safety. Already in 2003, the UN recommended that its staff shouldn’t at any cost use these mini-busses. That recommendations seem to be valid still today despite the presence of traffic police and check points at several locations in town, often to compensate for the frequently non-functioning traffic lights.

The problem in 2003 and still in 2017 is that there are still no proper well-functioning inner-city public and intelligent transport system: No trams like in Addis Ababa and Tunis, no public busses (fast-track busses like in Dar Es Salaam) and therefore no bus lanes, and definitely no underground metro rail system, which currently is only being explored in South Africa. But during the same time period Zambia’s population has grown from 11.43 Million in 2003 to 16.59 million in 2016 [for your information during the same period the Danish population grew from 5.391 Mn in 2003 to 5.731 Mn in 2016 and the citizen of Copenhagen were still complaining about the traffic situation, which constantly is trying to be resolved e.g. by means of: new metro-lines, improved public bus systems, bicycle lanes, by-passes, water taxis etc.], and at the current pace Zambia's population is projected to reach 100 Million inhabitants by the end of the century!!!

Moreover, in 2003 the GDP per capita in Zambia was only US$429.6, which in 2016 had increased to US$1,178.39. This almost tripling of the per capita wealth has consequently led to a rapidly rising Zambian middle class. With increasing wealth comes increasing private consumption. One of the consumer items that has been “positively” affected by this higher disposable income is the car sales market. Unlike in 2003, where I had to ask one of the ILO drivers to take a bus 2000 km down to Durban port to collect a second hand Japanese car for me, today there are so many second hand car sales outlets within Lusaka. However, they still bring the cars from Durban (although the government of South Africa has put an end to this; just as Zimbabwe recently imposed a 150% import duty) as well as from Dar es Salaam (in past they also used the nearer port of Beira, but that trade was destroyed by dishonest middlemen and theft of spare part in the holding yards in the port area). But I was still told that the best place to buy my second hand Japanese car is a placed called Musina close to the border between South Africa and Zimbabwe. Nevertheless, it turned out that I instead bought my Honda Fit used car in Gaborone in Botswana, but that is another story.

The number of passenger vehicles in Lusaka has significantly increased since 2003 because the middle class is much bigger and in many cases the adult members of the households have at least one car each. And yet I have seen no improvement to the management of the transport and traffic system beyond the road surface improvements of the main artery roads. What I have noticed instead is the introduction of a serious of badly designed humps, which are more detrimental to the state of the car rather than the safety they create on the road. There are almost no traffic lights in a city of more than 2 million inhabitants! The few lights that do work e.g. on the long Burma road which I take in the morning, are being undermined by drivers who choose to move around them on parallel roads, since it takes so long for the traffic lights to change from red to green? In other words, the traffic light is not adapted to the traffic volume therefore slowing down traffic rather than facilitating traffic!

Then there is the notorious round abouts which originally were meant for a city the size of 500,000, which allegedly is what Lusaka was built to house. While the roundabout still hasn’t reach the complete traffic halting apocalyptic dimensions as in a city like Gaborone, they definitely do not in any way make traffic flow smoothly in Lusaka. Let’s take the case of the Kafue roundabout next to the COMESA office (see image above). Every morning it creates a huge congestion because of all the traffic coming from independence Road, which then meets all the traffic from the T2 from Kafue (that is traffic from South Africa and Zimbabwe from one side) and the T2 / Cairo Road (that is traffic from DRC & Copperbelt as well as Tanzania plus from the Great Eastern Road, that is Eastern Province and Malawi & Mozambique). Basically, my office is located next to the busiest roundabout in all of Lusaka and Zambia. That is how I start every day of the week. But now that I have my own car at least I can leave my home and the office outside the most congested hours from 7.30 a.m. to 8.30 a.m. and from 4.30 p.m. to 6 p.m. respectively. But no wonder why my noise is full of dust every day when I come home from work! Why the M9 (from west), T2 (from North and South) the T4 & D152 all must meet at both end of Cairo Road is a mystery to me. But for sure if nothing is done about this via the construction of a ring-road and by-passes Lusaka is heading straight towards a Nairobi or a Lagos scenario, which will cost the city and the country even more than what is already being wasted in lost productive hours in traffic each day by this city’s more than 2 Mn inhabitants. Can the city afford such a devastating traffic growth scenario without taking concrete transport, transit and traffic facilitation measures?

Housing

Another positive spill-over from the rising middle class is that the housing stock has increased significantly. Whereas the rent to my small 2 bed-room houses build on the plot of my landlady on Roan Road in Kabulonga in 2003 was higher than the huge houses and swimming pools that my privileged ILO colleagues were living in Harare in Zimbabwe, when Harare was still liveable, and Pretoria in South Africa. At that time, it was the landlords market. They could basically set the rental prices at their own discretion since there was so few houses of a certain standing. Today it’s completely opposite to some extent at least. Lusaka seem to have been going through a building boom so that the supply of houses for sales or rental by far exceed the demand. Hence, the rental price is somewhat more reasonable, although this should be taken with some modification. My two bedrooms house costs me $1600 per month. I don’t know whether it is because of the location – Kabulonga – where I also lived in 2003. In the end, we chose this home because most of what we found within price range between $1,200-$1,500, which we were looking for was really not very nice to be perfectly honest. So, as soon as we saw this small semi-detached house on a plat shared with 3 other tenants we felted compelled to take even though we found the rant excessive. What is worse, is that its only after you have stayed in the house that you find out a general problem in Lusaka’s housing market. The constructors of the houses simply do not know how to be careful about the finishing. Take my case, the main door has an opening below of almost 0.5-0.75 cm where all kinds of creators can walk straight. Fortunately, my wife didn’t move in with me when we left Taj Pamodzi. I know that the two big spiders I have seen in my house so far would have taken all the pleasure away from staying here. The bathrooms are not done in a proper way, I could list a whole series of issues which I will not bore the reader with, but share with the landlord as a justification for moving out once my 2-month lease agreement expires. It’s both the building material and perhaps a lack of proper construction skills amongst those who build the houses. It’s such a big problem that I have seen some advertisements at the Real Estate Agents who emphasize that their houses don’t suffer from these incomplete houses. See section below on Roma Park.

Let me end this section my mentioning one indicator that quickly make you realize that you are living in a very green city is the sound of grasshoppers all over the place especially after dark. Fortunately, unlike Abidjan the city is not infested by bats, although malaria carrying mosquitos also exist, albeit not so widespread in the month of August.

Malls, Malls and utter Malls

Another symptom of the rising middle class beside the increasing personal vehicle fleet, and the relatively booming housing market, is the sheer number of malls that have like mushrooms popped up in many parts of the city. As I mentioned in the beginning, the first mall that you see when drive to the city centre coming from the airport is Waterfalls malls that e.g. contains Shoprite and on the other side of the road T4 you have Garden City that e.g. contains Pick n Pay. For those who don’t know but these supermarkets:

·      The Shoprite supermarket chain is the core business and flagship brand of Africa's largest food retailer, Shoprite Holdings Ltd.

·      Pick n Pay is the second largest supermarket chain store in South Africa

When you continue down the great eastern road towards the city centre when passing the University of Zambia (UNZA) you find another new mall called East Park Mall which besides containing a Pick n Pay supermarket also has a good food supermarket called Food Lovers Market. This supermarket can also be found in another new mall called Levy Junction Mall on Church Road as mentioned above. The interesting thing is that the East Park Mall has a lease with UNZA that expires in 20-25 years, so it should in theory benefit the finances of UNZA. But you will be forgiven to think that the students, the dormitories and the universities facilities in anyway have benefited from this arrangement. UNZA is unfortunately in the same sorry state as when I practice on their athletics ground in 2003 in preparation of my driving licence exam. On top of that during my first week of my return to Lusaka, the students were demonstrating against the prohibitively high tuition fee. Students have been accorded the opportunity to pay for their tuition fees in four (4) instalments. According to UNZA’s Public Relations manager “With these friendly tuition fee payment provisions, there is no excuse for students and/or their sponsors to default in honouring their obligations, that is, paying tuition fees, particularly if they value university education. Therefore, management would like to urge all affected students, without exception, to take advantage of the available provisions for paying tuition fees to avoid any inconveniences.” The problem with this “reasonable” instalment plan is that earlier on May 10, students staged a daylight protest after UNZA management ordered that students who had not yet paid tuition fees would not be allowed to sit for their examinations. The students burnt tyres at the higher learning institution, demanding that management allows them to sit for exams. But UNZA Vice Chancellor professor Luke Mumba said poor students must sort out their scholarship problems before going to university because the institution needed money to pay salaries! This is when you realized that you are no longer in Denmark/Switzerland. He further said, “Government is giving us for the GRZ sponsored students, it is giving us the grant which is K13 million to make it K24 million. To run this place, we need K38 million every month to pay salaries and running costs. So, we must find the other K14 million. Our budget is run in such a way that students must pay. So, it’s not a question of not being pro-poor, it’s a question of reality.” But this important battle a wholly different topic, which I can’t address in this blog, so let me get back to where I came from.

Just opposite East Park Mall you have the old Arcades Shopping Mall which was built in 2004 during my first stay in Zambia. This mall allowed me not only to get another choice – the Dutch multinational retail chain SPAR - than Shoprite at the time exclusively located in Lusaka’s first modern mall Mandate Hill a bit further down the Great Eastern road. But when you see how Manda Hill Shopping Mall has completed transformed into a two-story building with parking lots in several floors, the only thing that I recognized is exactly Shoprite and Game in the other end of the building.

There are many other malls in town especially when leaving the Kafue road round about where COMESA is located. The first one is called the Downtown Shopping mall. When you are approaching and entering the mall you quickly realized that this mall doesn’t cater for the same kind of clientele as those I have enumerated above even if it does include I think it was a SPAR supermarket. A bit further down Kafue Road (T2) at the junction with Lumumba Road you will encounter the Carousel Shopping Centre. I was told is the oldest and biggest shopping centre in Zambia with 250 shops and 150 offices, most of which currently seem empty when I passed by a few weeks ago? Continuing further down south along the Kafue Road you enter several other shopping malls, none of which I have visited so I will now dwell on this topic further. Except to mention a mall located between the Roma and N’gombe neighbourhoods that differentiates itself form all these big South African sponsored malls since it is a much smaller mall built my Danish compatriot and his partner called Foxdale Court Mall. However, it also contains a small SPAR supermarket like all the other shopping malls in town.

Down Town Lusaka

Next to my office at the COMESA Headquarters just before the T2 from Kafue reach the roundabout there is a very big across Kafue Road pedestrian bridge. I have been longing for benefiting from another pedestrian bridge to help me get across Ben Bella Road. The reason being that each time I must go for lunch without taking the car I am putting my life at risk crossing this very congested road to head towards the many shops that you find on respectively Cairo Road; Chachacha road; Freedom Way; and Lumumba Road. Let’s take them in the same order, since I have realized that it will no longer be feasible to walk down to the Levy Junction Shopping Mall once the temperature starts increasing, besides it takes almost 20 minutes from my office to do that walk.

Cairo Road

Cairo Road is supposed to be the Champs-Elysees of Lusaka stretching from Kafue Road round about all the way down to the round about where T2 (Kafue Road) meets T4 (Great Eastern Road) and M9 (Mumbwe Road). Many of the buildings on the right hand side move away from COMESA’s building are financial institutions all of which I interviewed for a paper mapping the financial landscape in 2004, such as ZANACO HQ; Indo-China Bank Ltd; Bank of Zambia; Barclays; Stanbic Banc Main Branch; Afriland First Bank (didn’t see this bank in 2004); Lusaka Stock Exchange; Finance Bank, all squeezed between Cairo Road and the railway line on the other side. While this is far from having any resemblance with the CITY in London, perhaps the presence of these financial institutions was the reason why this side of Cairo Road have much fewer informal street vendors compared to the other side and all the other parallel roads. Given the city’s increasing wealth and the investment in all the new malls, you wonder why the City Council of Lusaka haven’t done anything to try to embellish this major avenue in Lusaka? Nothing seem to have been done for the tourists and citizens of Lusaka to feel comfortable walking down this street where social inequality and poverty stare you straight in the face. Rwanda is a much poorer city than Lusaka and yet the City Council has cleaned up the city and made it much friendlier towards tourists and whoever want to move around town. The only building that has been renovated since 2003/04 is a tall building being refurbished by a Chinese developer. Perhaps the City Council of Lusaka should go on a study trip to Johannesburg which the city centre is amid being revitalized. Perhaps a model that Lusaka could follow to make Cairo road friendlier to all users of the area, which could be done by “coming together to achieve a common purpose”.

Chachacha road and Freedom Way

Chachacha road just opposite the COMESA HQ where I now work. As mentioned above it is perhaps even more difficult to cross the Ben Bella road to reach that road than what it was when I was working at the Super Annuation House housing the ILO in 2003/04. The filling station has a small supermarket where you e.g. can buy warm lunch – usually pie tarts and pastry. Then on the other side of Chachacha road there is what I believe is a new Shopping Mall called Iringa that goes all the way down to the taxi/minibus square. At the end of the mall facing this chaotic mini-bus holding yard there is e.g. a Hungry Lion. From Freedom Way there is another small shopping mall that also contains several places where you can eat lunch. Walking inside the Iringa Mall is a relieve because both roads are crowded with absolutely an amazing amount of street vendors selling all kinds of low-quality and cheap clothes, shoes, cables, electronics and the like, most of which probably comes from China. They were also there in 2003/04. Today there are just 3 times as many, thereby increasing the competition and lowering whatever small margin they sellers might have. But one thing for sure is that none of them brings any value added to the economy. Recently I read that there are only around 750,000 formal economy jobs in Zambia that must support a population of nearly 17 million inhabitants. From those two figures, you immediately understand why there is both high inequality and widespread poverty still despite the slowly rising middle class.

Lumumba Road

As a Congolese, I don’t know if I should be particularly proud of the fact that the road starting from Kafue Road (T2) running all the way up to Mumbwe Road (M9) is named after one of the continents independence heroes – Lumumba. At the first part of the Lumumba road (previously called Williams Street) is located as mentioned earlier Zambia’s first and biggest Shopping Centre. But soon thereafter to my horror you have a whole series of street vendors selling food and vegetables just next to an open sewer with an immensely horrible smell. Why is it the local authorities either haven’t fixed the sewer problem or removed or prevented the street vendors from selling food just next to an open sewer. It is because people are poor that you should just be overbearing and indulgent knowing that this can lead to cholera and death during the raining season?

I don’t think that I would want to walk on foot along Lumumba Road before something is done about this. Moreover, unlike Cairo Road, there are no proper pavement, so half of the time you find yourself walking on the sidewalks or on the street at your own peril, whenever you have to pass by someone carrying something that makes it impossible for both of you to remain on the sidewalk.

Just like in 2003/04 downtown Lusaka still leaves a lot to be desired, but whom to hold accountable for this sorry state of the centre of the Nation’s capital? We can’t all be going to the modern South African and foreign owned malls to seek refuge for the ugliness of poverty and destitution. Someone need to take responsibility for the Nation’s capital for the benefit of all its inhabitants including the poor that haven’t joined the ranks of the middle class.

From Kabulonga to Roma Park

Contrary to Lusaka downtown around Cairo Road as described above, it is actually quite nice to go for a walk inside the Kabulonga neighbourhood e.g. from my home at Lake Road next to Crossroads Shopping Mall to e.g. Kabulonga Centre Mall. I have walked along both Middleway, Serval Road (where the First Zambian President Kaunda has his Office); Twin Palms Road; and the bigger Leopard Hills road (D152).

In 2003/04, I lived on Roan Road on the other side of Bishops Road. But while Kabulonga Centro Mall didn’t exist at all at the time, where we only had Tukunda Shopping Mall or Manda Hill at Great Eastern Road, Roan Road looked exactly as I had left it 13 years ago. Lots of trees, sidewalks without pavement (probably because only poor people walk in Zambia and a few strange foreigners like myself, the rest drive their cars) and big tall walls to keep the burglar and poor people outside one’s property. I spent one year living on Roan Road without knowing how my neighbours behind the big walls were. Fortunately, I lived on the same plot as my Zambian Landlady, Ms. Banda, which gave me a Zambian family, since I was otherwise alone in my small 2-bedroom house.

Nevertheless, as a father of two small kids (3 and 2 years old) I often ask myself where are all the play grounds for the small kids. Here at the Kapulonga Centro Mall where most of this blog was written from I can see a kind of plastic roller coaster for the kids, and just on the other side of Bishops Road there is a school which is called I believe Kabulonga Boys, which contains the only real playground I have seen in Lusaka. So, this is another area where the Council of Lusaka hasn’t fully adapted to the demands and requirement of the middleclass families.

By mid-October my Housing Lease Agreement expires. This means that I will get a chance to live another neighbourhood in Zambia, disregarding Taj Pamodzi, for the first time. I will be moving to the Roma Park Housing project. In 2003 Roma was a neighbourhood to be avoided. You heard stories about shootings, burglaries and the like. This has certainly changed with Foxdale Court and now with the new Roma Park, which started off as a piece of 120-hectare agricultural parcel of land approximately 2.5 km off the Great East Road. In 2009 CPD Properties took ownership of was then Farm 609 on the Zambezi Road. CPD Properties has embarked on an infrastructure rollout which includes the provision of water and sewage reticulation, electrification of the entire development, construction of over 10 km of roads and the facilitation of fibre optic connectivity throughout the development. Since then Roma Park has been transformed into one of Zambia’s first mixed-use developments, and in partnership with the Zambian Development Agency – one of Zambia’s first Industrial Parks. As someone who contributed to a Handbook on Industrial Development in Emerging Markets with Roma Park is the first private commercial property zoned as an Industrial Park in Zambia under the ZDA Act of 2006 and being ideally positioned to provide extremely attractive investment opportunities, can’t wait to move in to witness first-hand the experience of living in an Industrial Park backed by Zambia’s Development Agency and owned by Rendeavour (Rendeavour is Africa’s largest urban land developer) and the CPD Investments Group.. But that experience you will shared in another blog about my life and work one of Africa’s most promising and fascinating emerging market economies.

Concluding remarks

When all this is said about the huge challenges and difficulties that both Lusaka’s citizens as well as the local government is confronted with, I still come to an optimistic conclusion. Namely, despite the slow progress that has taken place in Lusaka compared to other cities in the Southern Hemisphere during the same time span, I nonetheless remain optimistic about Lusaka’s future, if the necessary measures are taken in time by the local authorities and a certain mind change takes place (Kigali “Africa’s cleanest city” being a good example to replicate when it comes to e.g. banning non-biodegradable plastic), which is intrinsically associated with increasing living standards, a higher proportion joining the ranks of the middle class and democratic accountability of public service delivery to the taxpayers. Lusaka is geo-strategically well located right at the cross-road between Southern, Eastern and Central Africa and is the host of the AU’s largest regional economic community – COMESA – and also with one of the friendliest people in Africa to foreigners. It holds all the aces to determine its own successful and prosperous future. In fact, as of 2013 Lusaka was ranked as fifth in African cities with the most potential. There is still an incredible beauty that exists in the many green leafy streets of Lusaka, that many cities around the world could only dream of having. If only Lusaka plays its cards correctly, I see no reason why Lusaka will not become an attractive (impact) investment destination rivalling other major FDI destinations such as Nairobi and Johannesburg, as I will explore in my coming blogs during my entire stay in Zambia.