Zambeef: a victim of well planned, extremely centralised attack

Playing on the stupidity of a regular man who cannot know that aromatic chemicals are used in most processed foods, the communists at Bwinjimfumu Road have found it appropriate to help their friends to pronounce Zambeef as a company that deliberately uses leukemia causing,  dead bodies embalming chemicals to keep its meat fresh for long at the expense of people’s health

 

Zambeef, Zambia biggest meat firm comes under scathing media attacks

By Nyalubinge Ngwende

The communists at Bwinjimfumu Road have succeeded to get us right into the frame of mind they desire: to join a crusade to believe that Zambeef has been feeding us on a dangerous chemical that is not only used to embalm dead bodies, but potentially dangerous to human health.

The Post Newspaper story of Friday 21, 2013 writes:

“According to the analysis by the Ministry of Health's Food and Drugs Control Laboratory conducted in Lusaka last week, aromatic aldehyde was detected in all the samples. The analysed samples included packed ox-tail marked CNN/001/F/2013, packed ox-tail marked CNN/002/F/2013, packed ox-tail marked CNN/003/F/2013, packed ox-tail marked CNN/004/F/2013, packed ox-liver marked CNN/005/F/2013, packed ox-liver marked CNN/006/F/2013, packed ox-hooves marked CNN/007/F/2013 and packed ox-hooves marked CNN/008/F/2013. Health experts told The Post yesterday that aromatic aldehydes, which they compared to Benzene or jet fuel, are powerful preservative chemicals that are dangerous for human beings as they cause diseases such as Leukaemia.”

This paragraph does not tell us where the samples were collected and if they were collected to help Zambeef be aware that there suppliers were delivering them products that have a dangerous chemical.

All it does is to make us believe they have real Zambeef products in their hands which are intoxicated with strong, benzene like chemicals (that can even fly a jet).   

If those who are investigating this case were in anyway doing it independently without detailed instructions at the back of their mind, what the public would have been informed about is their intervention at Zambeef to ensure the meat they supply to the public is safe from unpalatable amounts of aromatic aldehyde. They would have told the public that any excess aromatic aldehyde could lead to cancer such as leukaemia. But there is extreme sourness in the content accusing Zambeef of deliberately injecting the chemical in the meat.

The story quotes a source: "For example, if someone dies here in Zambia and they come from the UK, in order for the body to reach the UK fresh, we inject the aromatic aldehydes in the veins. So it is clear that they use it to keep their beef fresh for a very long time," the health experts who opted to remain anonymous said.

It further states: "Aromatic aldehydes are very dangerous chemicals and it is unfortunate that Zambeef is actually using that chemical to keep their beef fresh. It is common knowledge that the only reason Zambeef is using that chemical is because they want to keep their products fresh." They said the presence of large quantities of aromatic aldehyde in the beef Zambeef Plc imports would be a clear indication that the substance was deliberately put there to keep their beef fresh.

This is deliberate aim to cause disturbance in the minds of members of the public.  By choosing a highly toned language saying aromatic chemical is used for embalming bodies is not in any way meant to inform but to alarm—a well calculated choice of discourse ...dead bodies conjure a lot of ghostly feeling in the mind of a human being and those living do not want to be associated with lifeless things ...therefore Zambeef products will be shunned.

There is every reason to believe that The Post Newspaper was used to deliver a dirty parcel bomb to blow up Zambeef, after well packaged at the Ministry of Health's FDCL (Food and Drugs Control Laboratory) and CCPC (Competition and Consumer Protection Commission).

These public institutions, joined by CUTS international (Consumer Unit Trust Society International), were particularly selected as sources because they are already known to be part of the scheme and had rehearsed what to say—force as truth on the minds of the public a theory of aromatic aldehydes being used in Zambeef meat.

The communists at Bwinjimfumu they are part of this group that is why they pronounced it. They know delivering the pronouncement with all these institutions in consent will help to lull people into false security. First they make us feel insecure by portraying Zambeef as a villain, then bring into the picture FDCL and CCPC as greatly concerned ...serious with protecting the public from dangerous meat that Zambeef is putting on their plates. It triggers public outrage against Zambeef. In whatever manner the meat firm will try to prove that aromatic aldehyde is not poisonous, the sales of its imported meat would already have been severely hurt.

It is not surprising that today’s Post Newspaper edition (June 22, 2013), carries a story of Zambeef pulling imported meat off the shelves.

Zambeef public relations officer Justo Kopulande said yesterday: "In the light of recent media reports to the effect that there are dangerous levels of Aromatic Aldehydes in our imported beef products, we have immediately recalled all imported beef products from sale from all our outlets country-wide with immediate effect. Only local beef and beef products are currently being sold in all our outlets. Zambeef has never and will under no circumstance ever knowingly supply sub-standard products to the public."

Post Newspaper Owner Fred M'membe

But this is not what the whole clandestine campaign is all about. We cannot tell as for now where all this is coming from and how far it has to go. We just look back at how The Post Newspaper has been hinting, in a more cantankerous manner, about opposition leaders UPND’s Hakainde Hichilema and NAREP Elias Chipimo Jnr. thinking they have a lot of money that they can run political parties out of their pockets.

These opposition leaders, or others in the political circles, could have direct links to Zambeef as shareholders or they could be suppliers or, maybe, some of their financiers could be linked to Zambeef.

The other way round is that the communists at Bwinjimfumu could be doing this to soften Zambeef to help out their declared friend, Michael Sata and the Patriotic Front to gain access to the meat company’s opportunities. We have heard that the newspaper will not do anything unless it has to serve its interests. Its interests now are to make the Patriotic Front achieve its ends, regardless the means.

Zambia has a lot of consumer risk products, some that are even more dangerous than the aromatic aldehyde chemical suspected to have been introduced in high dosages by the country’s meat company to keep its imported meat fresh for a long time.

However, the FDCL and CCPC look to have been on a well detailed mission, planned, centralised and extremely organised battle against Zambeef.

"We received correspondence from the provincial medical office in the Copperbelt in which they are talking about this matter. One of the inspectors took the samples to Food and Drug Control laboratory and they informed us about the meeting yesterday Tuesday," said Brian Lingela, CCPC director.

It has never been a practice by health inspectors to work with CCPC. When they bump into meat or any food product that is unwholesome, they do their own report and take it to court for disposal.

The idea to leave out the Veterinary authorities at Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock and Zambia Bureau of Standards who also have a direct hand on these issues confirms a calculated battle, with CCPC and FDLC being the battle rooms where they are launching the public bombardment campaign against Zambeef.

Lingela says: “the provincial office in the Copperbelt also requested the commission to attend a meeting that took place in Ndola yesterday.  ...and his office had since sent a representative to attend the meeting in Ndola ...with the commission was hoping to hear the matter and also find a solution”.

If Lengela was still waiting for information from his officer who attended the meeting at Ndola medical office, why did he choose to pass a strong verdict indicting Zambeef as guilty?

He is quoted in the same story saying: "What Zambeef has done is unacceptable...”

This is not the normal language of an independent mind on a case like this. He comes out incriminating Zambeef before hearing the conclusion of the Ndola meeting? Sounds like he was well informed ahead of the meeting what was expected to be their conclusion

This is confirmed by the way Lingela sets loose his hounds for a vicious attack on Zambeef by saying, “...and what health inspectors have done is a commendable job which needs support from consumer organizations."

He deliberately sets the hounds on Zambeef so to strengthen their case.

The Post Newspaper tried to recruit the Lusaka City Council into strengthening its case against Zambeef. It was done in futility, but the public health director Greenford Sikazwe at the local authority distanced himself from the kill.

"It is not true that Lusaka City Council inspectors are the ones who were investigating this issue, so your story is not true," Sikazwe said.

The Post uses its own sources within Lusaka City Council who confirmed that “it is true the samples in question were not sourced by the local authority but by a council from the Copperbelt and that all at Lusaka City Council were aware of the results from the samples”.

We find this truly unusual way of working by public health inspector in councils and at the ministry of health. They hardly collaborate and share this information. They act independently and without any volition of the specific business to target. It could be happening under the Patriotic Front, but without any public announcement of this new policy of collaboration exposes sourness in the whole ‘scum’.

Asked if his department has ever received complaints relating to Zambeef products, Sikazwe answered in the affirmative. "We received complaints (in May 2013) but the issues were being dealt with at Ministry of Health," he said. Asked why they could not carry out an independent investigation on the products as a department, Sikazwe said his department works on delegated legislation from the Ministry of Health. "That's why we couldn't act there and then because it was being addressed by the Ministry of Health," said Sikazwe.

If it is not Bwinjimfumu and its friends who after getting at Zambeef, who else could have delegated them and those who took the complaint to city councils in Lusaka and the Copperbelt? We are yet to know who did, and the country is already questioning?

We know that a normal public health concern does not take a vicious attack by  mobilised group of watchdogs a rehearsed consent on an issue like setting awash the Zambeef products with unpalatable statements like ‘leukaemia  and embalming dead bodies’.

The Post Newspaper story is nothing but a pronouncement by those who are part of the group bent at pulling down Zambeef or softening it to go crawling to the palace and conform to their needs. It was planned and Zambeef could only be a victim of ill intentions not necessarily that it is guilty of gross negligence.

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Zambians Get Political Over Aromatic Chemical in Meat

A non-entity discreet lab has stirred the country's that usually has people who hardly mind to read the labels of the food packs they eat into believing the country’s big meat company has been feeding them on a chemical used to embalm dead bodies

 

Zambeef staff checking carcasses of meat at their abattoir

By Nyalubinge Ngwende

Usually the aftermath of the ruling Patriotic Front trouncing opposition political parties in by-elections is dominated by debates how the government is wasting resources on parliamentary by-elections it is inducing by offering positions in government  to opposition MPs if they defected.

Yesterday the ruling party scooped the Feira constituency by election with a landslide victory, with former MMD MP retaining his parliamentary seat which he re-contested on the patriotic Front.  

But both the political pundits from the ruling party and the opposition are not preoccupied what went right or wrong over the poll, but the issue of meat allegedly containing a poisonous chemical aromatic aldehydes, imported from Europe by the country’s biggest company—ZAMBEEF—has dominated social media discussions and debate.

Hullaballoo about the aldehydes chemical in ZAMBEEF meat follows a story by the national broadcaster ZNBC main news report which quoted a Copperbelt based laboratory findings.

In the usual manner of manufacturing consent reporting style aimed at raising public outrage, ZNBC called aromatic aldehydes as a chemical used to embalm dead bodies.

And Zambian health minister Joseph Kasonde said government was instituting its own tests on the meat and warned of consequences if it is found true.

Following up debate on the matter gives the insight about the aromatic adelhydes and their long use in the processed food products.

A legal academician Elias Munshya Wa Munshya in his comment posted on the Zambian People’s Parliament FaceBook social page at 21.01 hours last night argues:

“We have been having these aldehydes for years. This is the same chemical that gives ice-cream that vanilla aroma. This is the same chemical that is used in most spices. This is the same chemical that is used in processed foods to give them that fresh meaty smell. I do not know why you are trying to create a storm where there is none.”

He adds: “We have been munching on these for years. No one has ever died or even fallen sick. However, I know several of our people in Butondo who today have respiratory problems because of pollution from Mopani, and what has Hon Kasonde done about it? Nothing. It is not public interest they are trying to protect, it is there own personal selfish interests by stocking fear in Zambians over substances which are by themselves not harmful. The PF government is a directionless government which has no clue and will end up being embarrassed over this so called manufactured scandal. More lies in our pockets”. 

The issue of ZAMBEEF has not escaped outcry of political machinations to fix the company by government as way of trying to hurt one of its shareholders, opposition United Party for National Development leader, Hakainde Hichilema.

Zambeef accuse

If this issue about ZAMBEEF is about settling political scores then we are really a very bad nation that is not being truthful to ourselves.

If it is not, as it has been heard so far that almost all farm products and processed foods are laced with aromatic aldehydes, then what need to be established is what are the effects of this chemical on the health of the people and what amounts are acceptable.

The reputation of the Copperbelt laboratory, which is still discreet, must be scrutinised to ensure its analysis is ethical given that it has made a big food safety scandal work on ZAMBEEF.

ZAMBEEF is a company that has abattoirs under regular public health inspection and whose imported meat undergoes several checks as it crosses the oceans before finally hitting the freezers in Zambian malls. We know this is a country where one has to struggle to find meat that meets all the hygiene and health concerns, but ZAMBEEF is quite responsible.

And if so, what has motivated this lab to go after them, and what is the efficacy of its analysis and is this its first work? These are difficult questions to answer.

But what is also surprising is that on ZAMBEEF the government has taken a different path, expressing unusual interest in the matter. It has failed to outright rebuff the findings as it did with the University of Zambia nutritionist who said Soya beans products had adverse health effects on human beings.

Honorable Haggai Amanda Phiri, contributing to the debate on the virtual social media parliament asked: “Why can't government close Zambeef?”

Another member Colin L Phiri in fact expresses shock at health minister, Kasonde’s reaction.

“I'm saddened with the swift energy at which our Minister of health has responded on the ZAMBEEF saga...it calls for concern as to why such pace is not seen on the lack of Oxygen at UTH, malaria medicines and the ARVs in hospitals around the country. It therefore goes without saying that most processed meat contains preservatives that are NOT embalming but to preserve the product before it expires. How such has been reduced to embalming is beyond me.”

The sure reason why people think this is a politically motivated revelation without is how limited the work of food safety testing has been.

They want to see such investigations go beyond ZAMBEEF or else the conclusion of selecting the meat company out of all others will be misconstrued, especially that one of the big shareholders is an opposition political party leader for UPND.

But one member ZAPP, Cheleman Nshitima reacted saying “Mr. Hon Zapp Speaker, I’m sadden[d] by some comments doing the rounds in the house. One thing is quite clear here, Zambeef is not a private company which the govt can take over simply on these simple grounds. As a matter of fact/s, Zambeef is a public company listed both on LUSE and the London stock exchange (LSE) meaning that the company belongs to ordinary people. And some people, out of pure hatred for PF govt are now blaming the gov[ernment] for being decisive and protecting the public, may be because such people live abroad in Canada they don’t feel for the ordinary on the ground. Here in the UK, we have had business people who have been prosecuted for such acts and why not in Zambia?”

He further argues: “On the other hand, hon. Edith Z Nawakwi has alleged corruption and that Zambeef is being shielded by govt officials, so which is which? And oh, HH does not have shares nor is he a major supplier for Zambeef people get your facts right and according to Zambeef itself, HH is in fact their competitor so, where does this nonsense of fixing HH coming from huh?

Logic is that if HH is a competitor then he stands to gain from this whole saga, anyone competitor stands to win if Zambeef is found wanting here.”

As seen so far, the appeal to Zambians is to be level headed as they debate this delicate matter which is the first food safety scam to enter the country’s public domain. At stake is not just business, but the health of many people the mishandling of the issue might cause to freak out over a storm in a cup of coffee.

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Subsidies withdraw, a better view from the past

Recently the government of President Sata in Zambia removed subsidies on fuel, maize and rolled back similar incentives on farm inputs. A look back at the negative effects similar measures undertaken in the 1990s produced gives little hope that the outcome will be different this time around

 By Nyalubinge Ngwende

To have a better view of something you need to step back and look at it from a distance. Therefore to get a better view of how a country’s economic policies will affect the present and future just as well require the prudence of stepping back. In this case taking a back step means looking at things from recent history. 

It is from a look into history that we can also draw some vital lessons to make predictable outcomes of the decision by President Michael Sata’s Patriotic Front government to remove subsidies on maize, fuel and roll back the incentives on farming inputs.

Zambia is not removing subsidies for the first time and there effects, apart from the political backlash that follows, are well documented in several reports.

In 1991, after wrestling power from UNIP’s Kenneth Kaunda, MMD President (late) Frederick Chiluba went for absolute removal of subsidies on all essential commodities, including farming inputs.

Chiluba was a proponent of a free market economy and wanted all sectors of the economy, including agriculture, to play to the vagaries of the market. Those austere measures were not as kind.

While subsidies were over used or misused under the UNIP regime, taking away funds necessary for development from other vital sectors, the haste removal of these economic incentives in the first three years of the MMD wrought unspeakable misery among the people and held back the country’s Human Development values.

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) after 1990, when Chiluba took office and effected widespread economic changes including removal of subsidies, Zambia fell from 0.423 value position in 1985 to 0.345 in 2000 on the Human Development Index (HDI) when he left office. The country lumbered behind in all social service delivery and continued to face high maternal and infant mortality rates which were all above a 150 per 1000, while enrolment and completion rates were poor.

In addition, the country’s infrastructure development remained stagnant, while the privatisation of State Owned Enterprises left most of the employable population jobless. Chiluba chose to dish out cash to churches and friends in millions while he asked the masses to sacrifice. Corruption also increased.

Like Chiluba, Sata wants to use the money saved from subsidies to build the country’s roads, schools and health facilities. He has even gone to tell the country that subsidies do not benefit the poor people, with various statements coming from the government spokesperson, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Service minister Kennedy, that subsidies only made the rich richer while the poor were becoming poorer.

The subsidies being removed were introduced by Mwanawasa who succeeded Chiluba in 2001. The

Mwanawasa reintroduced farm subsidies in 2003

subsidies continued under Rupiah Banda who had taken over presidency in a mid-term election in 2008 following the death of Mwanawasa.

According to the Zambia Human Development Index Report for 2011, the country climbed through the development index from 0.0345 in 2000 to 0.395 in 2010, a score slightly above the average of 0.389 for the sub-Saharan Africa. 

Among major successes that the report attributes these economic development gains includes a growth in the agriculture sector.

At the same time the country also recorded an increase in the access to education, with the primary school enrolment and completion rates, which were at 75% and 63%, respectively, in 1999 rising to 130 and 91, respectively, in 2007. Access to health facilities also recorded tremendous improvement, with the country’s hope to score on some of the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) looking brighter.

“The 2011 report documents a decade of noteworthy improvements in health and basic education services in Zambia. Infrastructure has produced development in these sectors has produced more schools, hospitals and health clinics across the country,” says the ZHDR titled ‘Service Delivery for Sustainable Human Development’.

“Essential drugs for immunisation, HIV, malaria and tuberculosis are more readily available, including for those previously not able to afford them,” says UNDP resident representative Kani Wignaraja in her foreword for the report. 

UNDP Country representative Wigranja

She further says that desks and learning materials have been made available, including importantly to community schools which is seen as an important catchment of school-goers.

“As a result of measures like this, some health and education outcome measures have improved: maternal and child mortality are on the decline, albeit slowly; school enrolment has reached universal coverage while school completion rates are on the rise.” 

The report also fingers the agriculture as another economic sector that recorded positive growth, attributed to good government policies coupled with natural conditions that saw an increase in yields of maize and other non-traditional crops. 

At the same the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) says in 2010 Zambia was considered the sixth best country in Africa for doing business, with the country receiving an annual average of US$211 million from 1995 to 2005, while the figure rose to US$960 million between 2006 to 2009.

It is on this positive growth, though with some gaps that needed to be addressed the Patriotic Front took over government from the MMD on September 23, 2011.

These gains over the past ten years shared between Mwanawasa and Banda of the MMD took place under what UNDP calls good government policies.

The two experiences under the MMD, gives a comparative look at the negative effects that the removal of subsidies produced in the country under Chiluba and the benefits the introduction of subsidies produced in thelast ten years that Mwanawasa shared with Banda.

The experience in the removal of subsidies under Chiluba can be associated with the outcome of the similar economic measures the current Patriotic Front government has embarked upon.

The similarity is glaring in that the affected subsidies include those on agriculture inputs, which in the past seven years gave back the country the pride it had earlier lost to feed its own people and overtime stabilised prices for essential commodities and wages for public workers.

Unless Sata uses negative effects produced by the removal of subsidies under Chiluba as a lesson of a bad experience and find a better way to handle his case, his measures to removal subsidies may just mess up the gains of the last 10 years.

Under Chiluba the unsuccessful proper use of the money taken from subsidies included financing developmental projects which were hurriedly launched and hastily implemented, resulting in shoddy works due to poor supervision.

It is doubted if the savings from subsidy removal in Zambia by Sata today will be properly used when we are seeing the weakening of institutions of governance with the President running the country by decree. 

Already, the government high levels of immorality in misusing the public tax money include induced by-elections, using deputy ministers’ positions to buy opposition MPs and a bloated public service of non-essential employees following the creation of new districts which were not budgeted for. 

Sata could not even wait to undertake changes in the Foreign Service, pulling out almost all envoys and replaced them with his family in some posts without properly budgeting for the exercise.

It is also not known how government is compensating people the President has appointed to the civil service as permanent secretaries and only fire them the next day before they even perform a single duty. These jobs go with a five year contract and termination may imply giving the disappointed appointee full benefits.

Further Sata’s government has failed to tell the country how much money he has spent so far for these unplanned actions, but it has taken to blame the huge budgetary consumption on fuel and maize subsidies which has been the only practical way the national cake was equitably distributed.

There is also an emerging trend of donating to churches, with the country being told that President Sata provided the money. It is not known if this is coming from his pocket money or public coffers. It is subtle corruption, but it is difficult to classify it as such.

NN