Along the Trail of Destitution in Zambia MARTINI KAPENDE 'Globalization insights’ is a series of feature stories told by journalists from Africa, Asia and Latin America – sto­ries that give an insight into the perceptions and experi­ences of people as globalization unfolds in their environs. This project is jointly organized by the Friedrich-Ebert­Stiftung and IPS EUROPA. The privatization of 257 enterprises in less than ten years might sound a remarkable achievement. But it will surely not go down into history as a'success story' of the coun­try's economic policy, says Austin Muneku, an economist at the Zambian Congress of Trade Unions(ZCTU). The reason: Zambia's privatization and liberalization programme, coupled with public sector reforms, has left a trail of destitution, company closures and thousands of retrenchees amidst increasing poverty and unemploy­ment. A case in point is Jane Chirwanda."I am 40, my husband died shortly after retrenchment in 1998. The severance package that I received from my husband's work was too meagre to sustain a family of five," says the widow."Ever since privatization, getting the package has been a prob­lem. It took me four years." she adds. Jane was lucky to even have collected her husband's severance package, but there are thousands, retrenched in mid and late 1990s, who still remain unpaid. John Chinyemba hails from Northwestern Province, more than 1,000 kilometres from Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. He has been travelling to the capital to obtain his pension every four months for the last two years."Four months ago, the Public Service Pensions Board told me there was no money and I travelled back to Mwinilunga dis­trict," he says. Ironically, the government owes the Pensions Board about 240 billion Kwacha. One U.S. dollar is equivalent to 4,800 Kwacha, the Zambian currency. To understand the misery of retirees and workers, it is necessary to go back to 1991 when the government con­cluded an agreement with the International Monetary Fund(IMF) and embarked on a structural adjustment programme(SAP) supported by the World Bank. The main objectives were to restore macroeconomic stability, facilitate private sector growth, and move agri­culture and industry from the public to private sector. Partly swayed by the winds of globalization, former President Frederick Chiluba embraced the most rapid and rigid SAP in Africa. Its focus was privatization, liber­alization and public sector reforms. This involved divesti­ture of parastatals, down-sizing, retrenching public work­ers and resort to a liberal trade regime. The World Bank hailed Zambia's programme as a model for other African countries in 1998 because of its fastest