The speaker will acknowledge the existence of a small number of exceptional public schools that they are unable to place their children in and bemoan that the mine-run schools have increased their fees to the point of unaffordability – incidentally these schools are frequently framed as (tax deductible) Corporate Social Responsibility. The parent will then explain the financial sacrifices they have made to place their children in a fee paying primary school. School fees can easily reach 20-30% of a person’s post-tax income per child, frequently necessitating second jobs and large loans. These tales, particularly when told by miners, are often followed by complaints about the combination of Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) taxation and Value Added Tax (VAT), which for middle-income miners can reach up to 50% of their salary.
Like the western middle-class that several respondents self-identify with, many miners desire to abrogate their children from a public system they see as failing and feel over-taxed by a state they believe is poorly run. Another seeming similarity between mine-workers and my middle-class upbringing is the combination of progressive politics with a belief that this progress does not involve further redistributing the wealth of the middle class. The picture above is an ActionAid poster, which I found hung in the office of the Chingolo branch of the Mineworkers’ Union of Zambia. It calls for a windfall tax on the mines (taxing the rich), an expansion of VAT into the informal sector (loosely a tax on the poor) and an end to corruption (associated with government incompetence). Mine workers therefore bemoan not just that they pay extensive tax, but that they cannot trust the schools that their taxes have paid for. In a similar manner to the middle-class of the West, the solutions they pose (higher taxes on large mines) focus on taxing a perceived global elite while maintaining their comparatively privileged status.
The purpose of this observation is not to draw a problematic equivalence between an Australian middle-class which comprises some of the world’s wealthiest people and a Zambian middle-class whose members frequently earn less than is required for the national bread-basket. Rather, it is to foreground how my own positionality influences my understanding of miners’ political consciousness and to introduce some initial observations about the complex relationship between Zambia’s miners’ aspirations and the nation’s development ambitions. The Mineworkers Union of Zambia’s (MUZ) claims that miners hold a special responsibility for Zambia’s development and many miners feel that they personally sacrificed to develop the nation during privatisation. However, MUZ’s executive council and mineworkers I have spoken to both oppose an increase in PAYE, including in times of national crisis, as they perceive this primarily as a tax on miners. Further, many miners describe the nation’s underdevelopment to me as its failure to support a middle class (specifically them) and to enable them to provide financial assistance to their extended families.
The mines, and therefore miners, are central to the Government of Zambia’s development aspirations. The potential balances between development through miners consumption, taxation on mines and as drivers of economic growth are worthy of debate, especially when one considers how much poorer other regions of Zambia are. In 2013, mining taxes provided 45% of government tax revenue and comprised 5% of GDP. The nation’s dependence on these resources allows mining executives and HR managers to argue that keeping wages low supposedly ensures the profitability of the mines and therefore Zambia’s development. However, the majority of the tax paid by mining companies during lean years (or years of efficient tax minimisation) is PAYE on miners’ salaries. Further miners’ economic contributions range from providing support to relatives in rural areas to the diversification of Kitwe’s economy (including the schools they send their children too). In this context, some for low taxation on the mines while increasing miners’ salaries will enable economic growth.
While most miners I have spoken to believe that the mines should pay more tax, they are wary of a tax burden that could reduce mines investment, profitability or salaries. This narrative can frequently be found in 37 Degrees or Insomnia, relatively upmarket drinking spots for wealthier mine employees and contractors. Core to both of these conceptualisations of development is a belief that the mines need to be relatively unfettered by government and taxation to thrive (with the exception of stamping out corruption that the government is itself understood to be complicit in). When this claim is made by multinational corporations it frequently rings hollow. However, respondents say this to a white middle-class anthropologist (me) and frame it in the language of providing for their children and dependents education, it feels significantly more persuasive.