I AM the police!

28 04 2012

“Do you know someone with a forklift for hire?” I asked Herbert over the phone.

“Yes”, said Herbert, “I’ll get back to you with prices”.

He duly did and they weren’t cheap but the container of coir from India had come through from the port in Beira a lot quicker than I’d expected so I had no chance to shop around. I agreed and waited for the container to arrive which it did around 9 a.m. on Friday. By 10 a.m. there was still no sign of the forklift so I got back to Herbert who was as puzzled as I was. A bit of phoning around and we managed to contact the forklift driver but then lost the signal. I started to wonder if they were lost, it doesn’t take THAT long to get out from the industrial sites. By 11 I was distinctly annoyed and wondering if there was an alternative way to offload the container. I got another phone number off Herbert and managed to contact the driver’s assistant. They were some 2km down the road so would be here shortly. It was a noisy phone call with what sounded like a very noisy gearbox in the background. It really didn’t sound good. 10 minutes later they were still not in sight. I wondered about the gearbox sound and then the penny dropped; they were driving the forklift on the road – I’ve heard them and they make that sort of sound. I couldn’t believe it but shortly a small blue forklift appeared on the road to the nursery. They really had driven across town in a forklift!

The offloading process soon started and it became clear they were ill-equipped to get 1 tonne pallets of coir out of the back of a container on a big truck. I was asked if I could find a trolley jack that could fit under a pallet. An hour later I had to give up – they were all too big. I decided to let my blood pressure drop and went off to have lunch. I got back and they’d refined the system a little and were making better progress so were finished by 3 p.m. I paid the assistant and turned to the driver.

“You are going to be back in town in peak traffic on a Friday afternoon”.

“It’s not a problem” he replied, unfazed.

“But what about the police roadblocks?” I asked.

“I AM the police” he said, getting onto the driver’s seat, “so they just let me through”.


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Snippets

26 04 2012

The Zimbawe Air Force has one fast jet still operational. I know that because I saw it flying when I was at the Zimbabwe Orchid Society show a couple of weekends back. It is apparently an F7 of Chinese origin. I now have it on good authority from a pilot customer that the last remaining pilot capable of flying it has resigned. The Hawker Hawk jets are grounded due to a lack of spares because those horrible Brits won’t sell us the spares – it’s those pesky sanctions again. I do see the occasional Bell “Huey” helicopter around but it’s been a long time since I saw an Alouette in the sky (I should hope so, they are ancient!) and I never saw one of the Russian Hind-D helicopter gunships that were used in the DRC (which was Zaire). Do we even have ANY operational aircraft? Just as well no-one is interested in attacking us!

Keeping up with the competition can be exhausting in any economic climate. Zimbabwe of course has its own rules. My nearest competition is an Israeli-owned nursery down on Harare drive. How did they get to own property in Zimbabwe – they are hardly indigenous? Word had it (it was a while ago) that they sourced the fancy riot control vehicles with water cannons for the Zim police and were allowed to own property in return. Come to think of it I haven’t seen them around recently either. I’m sure it’s nothing to do with spares – business is business as far as the Israelis are concerned. It must be our non-existent credit rating. I digress. The nursery was set up originally for supplying rose cuttings to the region and very state-of-the-art it was too. Special plastic and automation to boot. That market collapsed with the world economic crisis so they diversified into seedlings, fertilizer and various implements – all rather pricey (their seedlings are nearly twice the price I charge). In the early days of the US dollar I used them quite a lot because they had what I wanted even though it was not that cheap. Now there are much cheaper fertilizers and plastic around and the other suppliers spell Zinc correctly on the bag; not Zunc! That always makes me suspicious. If they cannot spell correctly or at least get someone else to check the spelling what else have they got wrong? I found out from my new greenhouse sheeting supplier this week that they’d also given some of their rather nice erect-and-go greenhouses to a number of the “fat cats around town” in return for good publicity. That type of business ethics I do find bit dodgy. I do however still support the pita bread bakery on the premises – hey, it IS good pita bread!

Traffic in Harare has increased tremendously over the past 2 years. Driving skills have diminished proportionately. On Tuesday I was very nearly eradicated by a driver in the industrial sites. I was approaching Rotten Row on Coventry Road and fortunately slowing down for the T junction. A car came out of the Colcom complex on my right, drove straight across the front of my pickup and exited onto Rotten Row 4 lanes later! Luckily I saw him coming out of the corner of my eye and braked hard. I guess he missed me by about 50cm. Not a week seemingly goes by without news of yet another bus disaster and in 36 years of driving I have had my vehicle checked for roadworthiness only ONCE about 3 weeks ago on the road to the airport, near Mukuvisi Woodlands.

“Please put on your hand brake sir” said the policewoman. She then leaned rather pathetically on the door frame to check the hand brake, checked the lights and I was free to go. Admittedly most of the accidents seem to occur when minibus drivers deem themselves invincible (which is most of the time) and overtake into oncoming traffic. When are the police going to get serious about bad driving and unworthy vehicles? I guess it is not a lucrative as harassing drivers for going through amber lights and not stopping at stop streets.


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Karanda Mission Hospital

25 04 2012

“You and I have something in common” said the 70ish lady as she left the nursery yesterday.

“Yes we do, but my problem is only going to get worse, yours is going to improve” I replied, looking at the stitches on her right ankle and the walking stick. “What did you have done there?”

“Oh, I broke my ankle so when the time came to have the pins out I didn’t have the money to have it done here so went up to Karanda Mission Hospital near Mt Darwin to have it done” she continued.

I was incredulous. I’d never heard of this particular hospital. “So how was it?” I enquired.

“Very good. The surgeon was an American doctor, the operating theatre was top-notch, and the nurses were wonderful. But I didn’t stay long. Once I’d come around from the anaesthetic they asked me if I could walk and that was it – I hobbled over to the car and left!” she replied.

I wondered if this was where Austin’s eldest son, Mike, did some 6 months attachment at when he was seeing if he wanted to do medicine.

“Yes, it was” said Austin when I asked him at the gym today. “Everyone has heard of Karanda! They are quite inspirational to put it mildly. The doctor Stephens who runs it has been there since its inception, some 50 years. I did 2 months there a while ago and it was an amazing experience. They are what we’d call the archetype GMO, or Government Medical Officer. They can do everything and I’m not exaggerating. We started one day with ophthalmology, then a gynae procedure, neurosurgery and gastro surgery. They can do hip replacements too. Stephens is in his early 80s, still works a full day and I struggle to keep up with him physically. During the war years he said he would treat anyone who was injured, regardless of who they were. This did not go down well with the Rhodesians so it suited them when things got really hot and the road was mined. They said they could no longer guarantee his safety so he got a pilot’s licence and flew in and out when he needed to! Amazing dedication!”

I mentioned the elderly lady I’d chatted to and how impressed she’d been with the equipment and she’d seen a whole lot of crates of new equipment being unpacked on the verandah. “I’m glad to hear that” Austin commented. “They went through a bad patch in the Zim dollar days. At one stage they were referring only 5% of cases back to Harare but now the traffic is the other way for those who either cannot afford treatment here or simply cannot get it done at the local government hospitals. It doesn’t say much for our local hospitals” he continued, warming to his subject. “If I had my time again it’s the sort of place I’d like to work for a couple of years just for the fulfilment. In all the time that he’s been there Stephens has only been away for something like 5 weeks! There are some other hospitals like it around the country. Morgenster near Masvingo is staffed by German doctors.”

I like to think that I live in awe of no-one. I have no desire to meet Bad Pitt, Angelina Jolie or have a conversation with Richard Dawkins but I do admire some. Roger Federer is the most amazing athlete I have watched and I am looking forward to watching the gymnasts at the Olympics perform mind-defying displays. The people I really admire though, are the likes of MSF, the ICRC and the doctors at Karanda Hospital, whom with little or no fanfare (the latter do have a website), just get on with their work with the utmost dedication. I am sure they are not well paid but I would think they have all the reward they desire. This is my small contribution to recognizing them!


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Just, well … absurd!

17 04 2012

“So howzit going?” Roy asked.

I briefly pondered the polite answer as per my previous post on Local Linguistics then decided to go for the honest answer; “I am seriously pissed off!”

“Why is that?” Roy asked, apparently genuinely concerned.

So I told him.

As a physically disabled person I can import into the country, duty free, an automatic gearbox saloon car, station wagon or light commercial vehicle. The first two are of little use to me because I frequently have to carry things around which either won’t fit in a saloon or station wagon or I simply don’t want to carry in the vehicle with me. Agricultural chemicals are one! So I was more than pleased last September when the Minister of Finance changed the legislation to allow the importation of commercial vehicles under the same exemption – up until that time they’d not been included. At the end of last year I made a few enquiries at a local Toyota dealer and then mid-January set everything moving. I got the invoice, paid for the double-cab pickup which is a light commercial vehicle, ascertained that I needed  a letter from a specialist doctor, copy of proof of residence, proof of funds to pay for it and a copy of my ID document. The system is of course exploited. I personally know of two people who are entirely capable of driving a manual vehicles who have managed to get automatic ones in duty-free.

Today I went for the mandatory interview, presumably to see that in fact I did exist and that I was not a fence for someone else who wanted to exploit the system. I was duly told that the double cab pickup truck that I wanted to import was not eligible, it was too heavy! I was dumbstruck. It turns out that only light commercial vehicles with a nett vehicle mass of less than 1.4 tonnes are eligible. It seems that vehicles fitting the description are made but are true commercial trucks of the type that are used by shopfitters and handymen for moving stuff around town – not really what I had in mind. Everything else is too heavy and only double-cab pickups have the automatic gearbox option. The ludicrous aspect of this I could import the latest Landcruiser which is far more than 1.4 tonnes NVM and far more expensive than the vehicle I wanted. Clearly not a lot of thought went into redrafting the conditions of the import rebate.

“So why don’t you get a Prado (smaller Landcruiser) and hire a driver to drive your pickup – you are the boss, get someone else to do the donkey work!” said Roy.

“But it’s stupidly expensive” I retorted. Cost aside it is an option, however it would mean that I’d be stuck if ever the driver went on leave or was off sick and I’d then have to drive the manual pickup truck which sort of defeats the object of getting an automatic vehicle.

We chatted business for a while and then seeing I still down in the dumps he said “Hey, listen carefully to me. Why cheat yourself when you can treat yourself. Remember, when we put you in your coffin the suit doesn’t have pockets so where will we put the money?”

I had to laugh at that.

“See, I made you laugh” he chuckled as he walked away.


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The Zimbabwe business model

10 04 2012

Zimbabwean retailers seem to have a curious business model. It often centres around marking up products to the highest possible price that the consumer will accept and when the consumer doesn’t buy the product it is simply left on the shelf in the hope that they might change their mind. This is most noticeable in the luxury goods sector.

On the way back from the bank to the carpark this morning I went past a local photographic shop. I’d seen a rather nice tripod there that I thought would do rather well for mounting my binoculars for a bit of steady stargazing. I’d made a mount for this purpose this long weekend and it had worked better than I thought on a monopod so I was keen to try it out on a tripod. Everything about the tripod seemed suitable for the purpose and it was a Slik 400 which is a reliable brand but the price at $464 seemed high even by Zimbabwean standards. A bit of internet research showed the same model at 72 pounds from Amazon.uk which at today’s exchange rate equilibrates to just $100! Now I don’t for a moment expect to buy that sort of item for anything like the same price it goes for in the UK, but trying to sell it at that price is ridiculous. I have also just checked the South African price and that is less than half the Zimbabwean price and South Africa is a very bad place to buy photographic equipment (it is usually around double of the USA price).

I bought my Nikon 10×50 binoculars from the same shop at least a year ago and they had another pair of very nice Nikon 8×40 roof prism binoculars which I briefly contemplated but could not justify the $760 price tag. I saw today that they are still for sale at the same price so maybe cash flow is not an issue and they are relying on the core business of photo printing and photo copying. Maybe I am sensitive to this because my business relies on very high volumes of sales (our pricing unit is in $/1000 seedlings) at a relatively low markup but I cannot for the life of me think why they don’t just drop the price and at least sell SOME of their higher value stock!  A curious business model indeed.


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A brief visit to the other side

7 04 2012

At my age I do ponder what it’s like to be really old. I AM officially “madhara” (see Madhara at 52 on this blog) so I don’t think it’s a strange thought. My uncle has just turned 90 and he is still very sharp mentally though my brother in the UK says that his back and knees are giving him trouble. My aunt – my aforementioned uncle’s sister – is 84 and still going strong so maybe I have their genes, but what would it be like to “lose the plot” with one of the age-related mental disorders?

The warehouse stank. It had that recognisable agricultural chemical smell – acrid and unpleasant. I was really glad I did not have to work there. One of the labourers loading the coir bales into the back of my pickup was wearing a dust mask but I doubted that it gave him much protection. After the second visit to collect the balance of the order I was glad to get out of there and head back to the nursery to offload the coir. I have ordered a container load from India but it ran out last month so I have to rely on other stockists around town. The interior of my pickup still smelt strongly of agro-chemicals even at lunchtime.

Things started to go wrong at lunchtime but I couldn’t really put a finger on it. I just couldn’t really concentrate that well. At 2 p.m. I was showing an agronomist from a locally based fertiliser company around the nursery to see if she had any ideas on what could be causing the strange growth and deficiency symptoms in the cabbage seedlings that we’d been experiencing. I very unself-consciously and loudly farted and just continued like it was normal (I am not usually THAT indifferent!).

Being month end I got stuck into the accounts, or so I thought. One particular purchase gave me trouble. I couldn’t remember buying the fertiliser even though I’d apparently bought it the previous week. I had no idea why I’d bought it. I searched through the computer but the menu on the software that I’d written was not making a lot of sense. I eventually found the composition of the fertiliser (it has a trade name that does not indicate what the contents are) and concluded that it was a micronutrient mix (it is not) and assumed that I had bought it. I still had no idea what it was for. I continued on in a daze but the computer programme was still not making sense so I decided to go home early. I didn’t panic, there was nothing to panic about. I had even forgotten that I’d written the computer package which does everything from accounts to keeping track of stock, the various fertilizer mixes that have been used and the weather as well as various other business related issues.

I had tea and logged on to the internet to download email. There were a number of mails referring to Tumbuka, a local dance group. Tumbuka? Who or what was Tumbuka? I had an idea I should know more about this Tumbuka but it did not seem that important. I had forgotten that I am a trustee on the Dance Trust of Zimbabwe of which Tumbuka is an arm. I mooched around doing nothing much of consequence, had a light supper and went to bed early.

The next day I was back to normal mental functioning and realized that I’d experienced some form of poisoning, probably due to something leaking in the warehouse where I’d been loading the coir. I mentioned this to Stewart who is involved in agro-chemicals and he said it was likely a symptom of mild organophosphate poisoning. Curiously, at no stage was I ever aware that anything was actually wrong, there was no sense of panic and no other symptoms that I was aware of. Is this what Alzheimer’s disease is like? General confusion? I must admit it was not that bad but I hope I don’t have to find out. But then if it does happen – will I even know?


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Policing amber

5 04 2012

The local police are on a money-making drive. They especially like hanging around traffic lights, called robots in this country, catching drivers running the lights. That in itself is not a big deal except they are looking for drivers going through amber lights – which is not illegal! Then they use a tactic of intimidation and the public’s lack of legal knowledge and a reluctance to go to court to issue a spot, i.e. on-the-spot*, fine of $20.

I was caught recently and even if I wanted to I could not have stopped in time for the light change – it would have left me smack in the middle of the intersection. The police were uninterested in discussing the issue and I realised arguing that an amber light was there to warn one of the impending change to red when of course one MUST stop was pointless. I did realise too late that their procedure was unusual. I was asked for my driver’s licence and then if I had $20 to pay the fine. They waited while I found the money before writing anything on the Admission of Guilt form.If it really was an offence to run an amber light why not just make out the fine form there and then?

I spent the rest of the day fuming and mentioned the incident to Gordon whilst paying my rent on the way home. He said “I refused and took it to court. I defended myself and won the case. It only cost me my time”. It does say very clearly on the top of the form that one has the right to be heard in court (see the highlighting in the image below) but I am sure that the vast majority of drivers know that paying $20 is much less hassle than having to go to court so the police take advantage of this. So next time I am not letting them get away with this!

*The spot fine system is under review as in the past one could pay within a certain time period at any police station. This would also presumably give the defendant time to research the legality of the “infringement”.

Admission of Guilt form. The highlighting is mine.


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It’s the connections that count

30 03 2012

“So how has this season been?” I asked the farmer once we’d got over the introductions.

“Actually it has been a good tobacco season” he replied. “Not too much rain”.

“And how secure are you?” I asked, referring to the possibility of an eviction.

“Well, there is someone after the farm but he is pretty much a non-entity. There is an electric fence around the house and once in a while we exchange words through it. I have got our case to the Supreme Court and so far we seem secure but I’m not at all sure that we’ll still be there for another season. At least leasing the farm means we have no emotional attachment to the land”.

I asked if the landlord had “connections” in the political world.

“No” came the reply. “He is another white farmer who gave up his other farm. His son was recently kicked off his farm in the same area. There is a notorious fat-cat with political clout who even managed to block the hearing at the Supreme Court and two weeks later was on the farm”.

I thought of my doctor and her husband who were evicted off their farm in November last year. Both the High Court and the Governor of the province had told them to stay on the farm but the would-be occupier know someone with a LOT of political clout and that was that. It’s all about connections.


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The trouble with ZIMRA

30 03 2012

I pondered the paper clip and bent it into the number 4. It needed more though so I wrapped the down bit around the tail. Ah, that was better but it was still unbalanced. Another 2 wraps and it was approaching objet d’art status. What associations did I have with the number 4? Four horsemen of the Apocalypse waiting on high. Chris de Burg song. I wondered if he was still shacked-up with the au pair girl after writing Woman in Red for his wife. Forthright, Firth-of-Forth, force to be reckoned with – that wasn’t really 4. I looked for other entertainment. I investigated the contents of the notelet holder on the desk but there was little of interest. Taking liberties perhaps? I think I’d earned the right to take a few liberties. This was my third visit to the ZIMRA (Zimbabwe Revenue Authority) office to get my Tax Clearance Certificate and after a total of some 5 hours there the goal was in sight!

A Tax Clearance Certificate is a requirement to import anything and it can take some doing to get as I’d found out. I have previously acquired them before by fair means and foul but things have tightened up substantially and this time there was a bit of a rush as the container of coir that we use at the nursery for propagating seedlings is due at Beira, Mozambique in three weeks. Now I really wasn’t so naive as to think that one visit would do the trick but all my tax payments were up to date when I arrived three weeks ago with the file in a bag and negotiated the stairs into Kurima House in the Harare CBD. Disabled access to public buildings is mandatory in Harare but it doesn’t seem to have filtered through to ZIMRA despite the recent refurbishment of the offices. The man at the computer made a few notes and sent me upstairs to the Debt Management department where I introduced myself to Mr M. After a mere hour and a half it was ascertained that my PAYE (pay-as-you-earn) file was up to date (it should be, I fill in the returns based on the deposit slips of the money that I have paid) but the company income tax needed a payment. Wow, this was easier than I thought! I went straight off to the bank full of optimism and hope and made the required deposit.

Last week I was back, somewhat puzzled as to why my PAYE account no longer balanced. We sat and pondered the columns of figures. It seemed that a $501 deposit had found its way in erroneously. That had to be removed but not straight away. There was also an issue of a previous penalty that I’d paid that had been wrongly credited to the wrong account. I left after 2 hours more than a bit depressed – I just didn’t seem to be making progress. It didn’t help my mood that I’d been optimistic enough to only pay for one hour’s parking and had to dash (well dash at my speed) downstairs to pay for the next hour.

Then yesterday it all fell into place. By this time Mr M and I were almost on first name terms, I had his phone number and had even booked an appointment. I paid for a full 2 hours parking and made my way upstairs. The $501 had been removed and the penalty had been correctly credited but it still didn’t balance. I muttered a mental obscenity – one DOES NOT GET FLUSTERED IN PUBLIC IN THE ZIMRA OFFICES – and settled down for an extended session. Then it all clicked into place! I ended up with a $46 credit, Mr M typed up the necessary letter clearing the way for the Tax Clearance Certificate and I was in his supervisor’s office happily bending the paper clip whilst waiting for her to appear and sign the letter.

That done I was back downstairs in the office that issues the tax clearance – waiting. It was lunch time after all. Not only that, it was lunchtime at the end of the month so most people were not out to lunch but passing their time on emails and computer games because as one clerk admitted, “I am broke”! I watched a video of some daft characters in a zebra suit trying to get close to a herd of zebras. The latter were not impressed but a pride of lion were and investigated and after a short tussle one immature lioness made off with the head of the zebra costume without the idiot’s head inside it. They were obviously out for entertainment. Then it was my turn and in a short while (relatively speaking) I had the treasured green document in my hand and was off to celebrate lunch at a restaurant I’d heard of.

The “croissant” arrived  cold despite being taken “hot from the oven”. It looked like a croissant but the interior was definitely just bread. The coffee was acceptable so I sat and enjoyed the smell of rain on the hot tarmac for a while.


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Madhara at 52

11 03 2012

I was not too impressed the first time I was called madhara (old man in the Shona language). However, in Shona culture it is a term of respect for someone who has achieved old age, against the odds. Perhaps this originates in the not so distant past when getting to old age was not the norm. In the much more recent past Zimbabwe’s average life expectancy plunged below 40 years for both women and men but I see that now it is  back above 50 and ahead of such countries as South Africa but with a ranking of 214 in the world that is not a lot to crow about.

Not so long ago I was asked at a local supermarket if I was a senior citizen and therefore qualified for a discount. I feigned indignation and got a laugh. I recounted the story to friends and they thought I was silly not to take the opportunity, but there is only so far I will stoop. Then two weeks ago I was at the CD launch of a local group in town where Oliver Mutukudzi, Zimbabwe’s very own music superstar, was the guest of honour. He was introduced as Madara Oliver Mutukudzi and suddenly being “madhara” didn’t feel so bad. Though I should point out that my musical ability does not even approach his – I have yet to master the air-guitar. Mhdara at 52, yes I think I can live with that.


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