Optimism over that transition had been high. But privatization of state-owned industries soon became marred by official corruption, and by December 1998, when Barraclough's investigation was published, most Western nations had greatly reduced their aid programs to Zambia. There's no old money in the country, because we emerged from colonialism only in 1964.
Ministers therefore have a very strong desire to enrich themselves quickly.
According to Barraclough's interviews with former ministers and other officials in Zambia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, President Frederick Chiluba had purchased properties in Belgium, the Netherlands, and South Africa since taking office, and had sealed off his inner circle of advisors from corruption investigations. The World Bank and IMF, nevertheless, continued to disburse hundreds of millions of aid dollars to the country, allowing the government to delay the sale of near-bankrupt copper mines. Government ministers simply grabbed the assets. As the only known worldwide distributors of the quinacrine pellet, Mumford and Kessel had facilitated over 100,000 sterilizations since taking up the cause in the early 1980s. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which licenses the sale of all prescription drugs in the United States, never approved quinacrine, but could not stop Mumford and Kessel from exporting it.