Fellow Countrymen,

It is almost a year since the former British High Commissioner to Zambia Alistair Harrison told a Radio Christian Voice programme, Meet the Diplomat, that the economy wouldn't suffer even when copper prices fell on the international market.

"I think that the way in which the copper industry in Zambia is going about with its business suggests that if copper prices were to drop again, there would not be the same disaster to the Zambian economy due to a number of reasons. First, because I think the Zambian economy is not dependent on copper as it used to be," he said (The Post, Monday, February 12, 2007)

Well, that has turns out to have been a false prophecy: The kwacha has actually been suffering the deepest plunge since 2005.

Former High Commissioner Harrison's sentiments, if they were not diplomacy aimed at pleasing the host government, have taken a hard beating this year.

The government, panicking and desperate to look responsible, has turned to asking mining companies to cut down on expatriate workers.

The Minister of Labour and Social Security is quoted by the government media (Times of Zambia, Mon, December 8, 2008) saying the Government told mining companies that reducing on the number of expatriates would help maintain Zambians in their jobs as the salary of an individual expatriate would cater for more than 10 Zambians (Oops!! I did not know that expatriates made so much money!)

And how can they even send their expatriates back home? The US has shed some 533,000 jobs, the worst in recent history.

Credit Suisse, an elite investment bank, is cutting 5,300 jobs. What jobs will these miners find in their countries?

The good news for now is that copper has risen to $3,315 per metric tonne in London trading, according to Bloomberg reports.

Such reports may excite companies eager for quick economic recovery, but will disappoint producers, especially those that were starting addicted to the once-high price of about $6,700 per tonne.

This are lessons even for economists: The world economy, in its currently globalised form,is prone to tectonic shifts.