Resource Nationalism and Indigenous Capital Accumulation: Interrogating the Motivations Behind the Zambia Industrial and Mining Corporation (ZIMCO) Bond Redemptions, 1969–1975

Following the acquisition of a 51 per cent stake in the country’s copper mines in 1969, the Zambian government issued repayment bonds (that is, ‘ZIMCO bonds’) to their minority owners, Anglo-American Zambia (AAZ) and Roan Selection Trust (RST). On 31 August 1973, Kenneth Kaunda announced that these bonds were to be redeemed and the management, sales and technical service contracts with the minority owners were to be cancelled. The expansion of the Zambian copper mining industry, it was said, was being held back by the reluctance of the minority shareholders to fund exploration, invest in new projects, or facilitate Zambianisation, as they preferred instead to collect exorbitant management and sales fees and to repatriate profits to overseas shareholders. Contrarily, Andrew Sardanis, the former managing director of the Industrial Development Corporation (INDECO) and Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of State Participation, maintained that the true motivation behind the redemption of the bonds was to enrich Lonrho’s notorious chief executive, Tiny Rowland, and a select number of Zambian co-conspirators. This article interrogates both of these diverging narratives, nationalist and cynical, and argues that the redemption of the ZIMCO bonds as well as the cancellation of the management and sales contracts can be partially attributed to pressures emanating from Zambian contractors to secure larger and more frequent contracts from the mines. By advocating for greater state involvement in the management of the mines, principally in the awarding of service contracts, these contractors shaped the country’s resource nationalist agenda. Drawing on archival material from multiple sources, newspaper articles and key informant interviews, this article maintains that indigenous capital accumulation is an important factor in understanding Zambian resource nationalism. The article concludes by drawing parallels between the more recent ‘second wave’ of Zambian resource nationalism and this historical episode.