Local government reforms and the challenge of local development in Zambia

Abstract

At independence in 1964, Zambia inherited a governmental system whose structure existed mainly for the purposes of serving the political, social and economic interests of the minority colonial rulers and other white settlers. This is notwithstanding the rhetoric of “indirect rule” through which the colonialists outwitted the African traditional leadership with the fake promise of increased African participation in governance and development matters over their territories. Instead, what Africans got was increased presence of colonial administrative officials in rural areas, and increased colonial control of African chiefs and headmen. At that time, as was the case with many other new countries, one of Zambia’s daunting tasks was that of nation-building through accelerated national development. This could not be achieved in the void of clear political, social and economic policies and laws. Consequently, national development was to be pursued through various structural reforms on the political, social and economic frontiers. One of the most important of these was the decentralization reforms which were first birthed by the promulgation of the Local Government Act, 1965. Since then, the Zambian government has made several other attempts at decentralizing various aspects of governance. The most important of these have been the Local Administration Act (1980) and the Local Government Act (1991), and the various policy reforms promulgated over the years. This article argues that notwithstanding these various legal and policy initiatives, Zambia remains a highly centralized country with façades of local government institutions which, in reality, serve the interests of central government at the local level. The evidence in this article clearly suggests that decentralization policies and pronouncements by the successive Zambian government officials since independence have been a mere populist rhetoric for political expediency without any real intention to enhance local governance and development. Some historical and political reasons, highlighted in the article, account for this.