Mushimba: trail of engineering genius

Dr Mushimba with his wife. Right: Dr Mushimba during his graduation with a PhD in engineering at the University of Zambia

By VICTOR KALALANDA, Reprinted from the Zambia Daily Mail, March 7, 2019

Early this year, on a breezy Saturday morning, report that the cold hand of death had manifested in a road mishap to virtually claim the life of Brian Mushimba, Zambia’s Transport and Communications Minister, pulled at the heartstrings of the ZNBC TV1 newsroom.

It was a common newsroom reaction, for reporters are not “immune” to the pain of human tragedy, particularly in this instance where an elder statesman of engineering was involved, who, besides his decorum and circle beard, is internationally renowned for adding approximately 10,000 Megawatts of new generation capacity onto the USA national power grid.

“Honourable Mushimba has just survived a road accident,” announced renowned ZNBC journalist Brian Mwale, arresting the attention of his colleagues who had hitherto been typing news stories.

“What?” sharply intervened Mwila Nsofu—the day’s assignment editor.

“Yes,” Mwale commenced explanation, “his car flipped on (Lusaka’s) Thabo Mbeki road.”

“Iyeeeeeeee—may that man recover, please,” replied the editor with a disturbed countenance.

The public was equally riveted to the spot when the news was carried by ZNBC in the afternoon, immediately after which a comment on a related website warmly read: “This is the best Minister of Transport with his permanent secretary, a very good, brilliant pair. We pray to God Almighty to extend his healing hand on you, honourable.”

Now more than a month later, had that petrifying accident which left an injured arm—that’s currently undergoing restoration—proved fatal, Mushimba would not be around for conferment of a PhD in environmental engineering at the country’s prestigious seat of knowledge, the University of Zambia (UNZA).

Obviously, had he passed away, UNZA would have posthumously published his invaluable PhD thesis, but it would have left Zambian readers admiring the 45-year-old author’s staggering genius, trying to fathom who he really was and wishing he had survived to serve his country longer.

It was therefore only fitting that the often bespectacled, good-looking and soft-spoken Mushimba, the very prospective lawmaker who, back in 2016, once knelt down to plead for votes from electorates in Kankoyo Constituency, rose to his feet in receipt of a UNZA PhD on March 4, 2019.

Mushimba was born on November 2, 1974 as the ninth child to Harry Mushimba, who was a general worker in the mines, and late Prisca Muswile, a market trader known for dried sadines at a local market in Kankoyo. Prisca who would die of heart attack in 2011 at the age of 66 had taken to this business solely to supplement her husband’s paltry income.  

Though plagued by systemic poverty and having a squalid one-bedroomed house as their only dear possession, the couple went on to have 18 children, who have since reduced to 16.

“I kind of grew up at the market myself trying to help mum sell. There were many nights we would go without food . . . my parents would just tell us to drink gallons of water and go to sleep,” the Minister pensively narrates.

The Mushimba house was crawling with lots of children who would occupy every available space, and owing to lack of blankets, would grab their mother’s chitenge materials to cover their tiny bodies whenever the cold season had come.

Devoted Jehovah’s Witnesses as the Mushimba’s may have been, the poverty cycle in their family was so strong as every other child that dropped out of school ended up perpetuating it. Never had it dawned on any the many children that education could be a springboard out of the dungeons of indigence.

It’s only the young Mushimba that came to see education for what it truly is, an equaliser, following an encounter with well-to-do paternal relatives.  

“I was the first one to finish high school and go to university because those older than me stopped school and started work in the mines. When I visited two of my father’s relatives who were doing fairly well, I saw a TV, a phone and a flushing toilet in the house for the first time. I started asking myself questions,” the Minister discloses.

Though he was only in grade 6, such a life of comfort intrigued him and, when he sought for answers, the relatives intimated: “If you want to leave like this pay attention to school.”

In retrospect, that statement indelibly became the future lawmaker’s incentive to stray from the winding orbit of poverty and instead seize on education as a highroad to prosperity.

“I look back to that moment as the one that set me on a path of academic excellence because from that time on I was always the best student,” he states.

Nicknamed “Zali Zali” for his tendency to get 100 per cent in any test he would write, Mushimba breezed through school to the point of clinching the coveted 7 points in what is today’s grade 12 examinations, whereupon he landed a competitive but generous ZCCM scholarship to study mining engineering at the USA’s University of Arizona in 1996.

By the time he was finishing his degree in 2000, ZCCM was undergoing liquidation, which entailed that future obligation to return and work for the mines was curtailed, and graduates were free to look for jobs elsewhere.

“I managed to find employment in the USA as an engineer to get more practical skills so that whenever I wanted to come back I would be more valuable than just a fresh graduate,” he says.

His job was with Siemens Power Generation, where for seven years he progressively served as an instrumentation and controls engineer, lead commissioning engineer, senior engineer as well as project manager by the time he was resigning to join Lafarge North America who, at his request, would four years later transfer him to Lafarge Zambia.

Incidentally, while working in the USA, Mushimba earned one Master’s Degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Engineering Management and another one in Business Administration in International Business Management from Salem University, all under the auspices of Siemens.

It was here in America that the indefatigable engineer travelled everywhere, leading efforts to design auxiliaries around Siemens-made electrical equipment and spearheading installations on site to ensure they met engineering standards. Through all these commissions he historically led engineers to put approximately 10,000 Megawatts of electricity onto the USA national grid. Of course, Zambia only has about 2,700 Megawatts of electricity.

After acquiring as much expertise as possible in America, Mushimba decided time had come for him and his wife—who she had met in America and had since given him two boys—to relocate and plough back into Zambia.

“Lafarge North America quickly agreed that in Zambia ‘we need someone with your background’ to tighten the operations and productivity. So, they paid for my entire relocation . . . in the same capacity as engineering manager I joined Lafarge Chilanga Cement and I was there for three years,” he recounts.

After his 2012 appointment with Eskom in South Africa ultimately brought his service in the private sector to 18 years, Mushimba had come to fraternise himself with the pro-poor politics of the PF, and was convinced he could now serve as Member of Parliament of his home, Kankoyo Constituency.

In the 2016 general elections, accordingly, Mushimba had to compete for adoption with 13 other contenders, proving he was the only Kankoyo resident among the applicants and producing a bank statement to show that he was ready to fund his campaigns if picked—it was a resounding victory for him and the rest is history.

He won the elections and, much to his disbelief, President Edgar Lungu appointed him Minister of Transport and Communications.

“It was humbling, a tremendous honour and I don’t know how to thank the President except just work as hard as I can to drive his vision and agenda in my ministry,” says the one-time Jehovah’s Witnesses who has become a source of financial refuge to many of his relatives.

While all this was happening, the Minister’s PhD pursuit which had begun at UNZA in 2012 was slowly taking shape amid great pressure, all in a bid to solve a problem in society and inspire a hopeless boy in Kankoyo that they too could compete on the global stage.

Under the supervision of venerated engineer Dr Edwin Nyirenda, Mushimba has this month delivered his PhD thesis demonstrating the conversion of municipal solid waste to an energy source as a substitute for coal, which is a massive pollutant, in cement manufacturing in Zambia.

 “Lafarge and Dangote are interested in this research and other cement producers will be interested because we are commercialising trash to make it valuable and also cleaning the environment. If we can start substituting coal which is a major culprit in contributing to the ozone layer depletion, then we’ll start winning this battle against hot temperatures and climate variability,” he says.

His supervisor adds: “He was a very hardworking student. His PhD is a worthwhile contribution to the problem of municipal waste as well as to producing energy.”

Chosen to give the vote of thanks in his capacity as a special UNZA graduand yesterday, the Minister posed this question to the convocation and the country: To what end is the education we seek as a society?

Looking at his life thus far, the lawmaker has clearly used his education to serve his country and the world, providing solutions to social problems, which should be the goal of every great citizen. It must be the same reason her mother said this before she died: I’ve seen the value of education in you.”