The Zambia representative of the World Bank must surely realize that if you pay for a study commissioned by a government department that the Bank has a responsibiity to ensure that the consultants are qualified, that wide-ranging consultations are undertaken within civil society and that the report does not serve an end which is clearly not in the nation's interest. In the case of this study clearly none of this occurred; therefore the Bank must take it on the chin. When I questioned the revolutionary conclusion of the consultant that all customary land should in future fall under the Ministry of Lands, saying that the House of Chiefs were not represented at the meeting, nor the cross-sectoral Natural Resources Consultative Forum, adding that the consultation process appeared to have been engineered to ensure that there was no opposition to such extraordinary conclusions, the two Bank representatives said they would ensure that this was done before handing in the report. This was smoke and bones as they did not ensure further consultations were carried out; therefore they lied to the Zambian public and should be disciplined by the World Bank Group's Institutional Integrity Department (INT). After all, what is corruption.
And in the case of the Bank funded review of the Zambia Wildlife Authority's strategic plan, when I pointed out glaring errors in the draft report as well as the serious omission of any mention in the accounts of disbursements made to rural communities, nothing was done to rectify the matter in the final report. And the Bank is aware that as a result of payment shortfalls based on income from hunting safaris , wildllife protection in rural areas is severely impaired and elephant poaching and the illegal bushmeat trade on the rapid increase.
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