Provincial and District Government in Zambia*
| Date | 01 July 1968 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1968.tb00337.x |
| Published date | 01 July 1968 |
| Author | William Tordoff |
Provincial
Zambia and District Government in
*Part 1 at Provincial Level
By
WILLIAM
TORDOFF
Dr. Tordoffis Professor of Political Science, Universityof Zambia, on secondment
from the University
of
Manchester.
IT is commonplace to say that the colonial administrations of British Africa
were far more concerned to maintain order than to promote social develop-
ment. This axiom is much less valid for the post-1945,than for the pre-war,
period. As J. M. Lee has shown in his recent book on
Colonial
Development
and Good Government, there was among British
official
classes after the war
"a
determination to set about colonial development in earnest" and this
obliged the Colonial
Office
to recruit more administrative officers as well as
technicians to the Colonial Service.'
The
pace of development in a given
dependency was determined, of course, by local circumstances and the
enthusiasm shown by individual district commissioners.
The
political
climate in Zambia (or Northern Rhodesia, as it then was)was not conducive
to development and the axiom in question has therefore greater validity for
this country than for many other parts of British Africa. In particular, the
imposition of federation in
1953
on a reluctant people, in Northern Rhodesia
as in Nyasaland, meant that the colonial (and for that matter, the federal)
government was faced with a grave security problem. Moreover, a govern-
ment whose rule throughout this period rested on coercion rather than
consent was ill-equipped to play a mobilising role - to persuade the people
themselves to participate in development. Above all, the effectof a peculiar
combination of territorial exploitation and racialism was to tap the great
mineral wealth of Northern Rhodesia mainly for the benefit of the white
community which was strongest
in
Southern Rhodesia.
The
result was
that by the time the Central African Federation wasdissolved in 1963very
little development had taken place
in
Northern Rhodesia. Herein lay the
greatest challenge to the UNIp2 Government which took
office
following
the party's success in the general election of January, 1964. One of the
Government's most urgent tasks was therefore to transform the inherited
structure of Provincial Administration - the focal point of the colonial
system ofgovernment - into an instrument of economic development.
The
transformation proceeded on lines similar to those already mapped
out in Tanzania, which to some extent served as a model for Zambia.!
Many
of
the duties formerly performed by officers of the Provincial
•
This
article is mainly based on discussions with politicians and civil servants; the
author is of course solely responsible for the views expressed.
1J. M. Lee, Colonial Development and Good Government: A
Study
of
the ideas
expressed by the British officialclassesin planning decolonization, 1939-64, (Oxford, 1967),
P·35·
2United National Independence Party.
JSee my book, Government and Politics in Tanzania (Nairobi, 1967), ch,
IV.
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