Zimbabwe Absurdity

We, that’s my generation, are probably a bit of a strange lot by modern standards. I’ll explain. We take things on trust. I last signed a lease on the nursery in 2000. Since then it’s been taken on trust that I’ll keep to the conditions we agreed to on paper back then. When I first computerised the point of sale my landlord was a bit suspicious and required me to print a listing of all the sales I’d made (my rent is based on turnover amongst other things) so he could check up on what I was paying. This lasted about four months until he realized that the computer and my programming were probably more accurate than him tapping away at a calculator. Now he just accepts the figures that I give him.

Some years ago I was working for a company that exported fresh vegetables and various value added products to the UK supermarkets. From time to time the agents we dealt with would send out various staff to check up on various aspects of the business. The first time Tracy came out she was more than taken aback when we stood back to allow her to enter a room first and we (that’s the predominantly male staff) stood up when she walked into a room. We asked her about this and she did admit that she sort of liked it but it took a bit of getting used to. I guess we were (and still are) a bit “old fashioned”.

Yesterday lunchtime I was about to head out to the gym when Colin came anxiously through the gate. He’s a dour chap with no discernible sense of humour so I should have known that something was up when he was considerably more voluble than usual. He acts as an agent for a number of farmers and they export a considerable amount of granadillas (passion fruit) to the EU. I’d grown a considerable amount of seedlings for a number of his customers and had accepted that they would pay on collection. This may seem a strange statement to make to those of you in civilized countries but we had to adopt an up front payment system to avoid getting left with large amounts of uncollected seedlings (yes, even when the farmer supplied the seed!). We have been dealing with Colin for a number of years now and never had a problem and this year he really owed us a lot as we’d managed to fill up the shortfall that another nursery had created by not germinating a single seedling. But his biggest grower who was planning on a 16ha granadilla project had been turfed off his farm. Now a project of that size requires considerable investment in terms of drip irrigation and trellising so he must have been confident that he was not going to encounter problems. Indeed, Colin assured me (at least four times, he was clearly nervous of my reaction) that this farmer was “connected” all the way to THE TOP. No matter, a fat cat wanted what he saw was a profitable enterprise and he has taken it. It matters not the slightest that he does not need it and does not have the skills to run it. The farmer in question was confident that he could get his irrigation and trellising off and start up somewhere else (make a plan) but I told Colin that realistically that would take 3 months or so and the seedlings would be long oversize by then. So, it seems that I will have to dump some 200000 granadilla seedlings worth some US$4000, a not inconsiderable amount for my business. If I am still here next year and if there are still commercial farmers to be supplied with granadillas we are going to have to review this whole trust issue. I really cannot see why I should “share in the risk” as has been suggested to me in the past! Oh, and I did not lose my cool. I couldn’t really even think how to react so I just shrugged and said nothing much; I think Colin got the message.

A large part of the northern suburbs has been without power for the past six days or so. My friend Trevor tells me he’s become a fair grave digger; mainly for the chickens and other meat that went rotten in his deep freeze. Apparently the power came back on this morning though it was way too late for most. I am more lucky – we seldom get power cuts here and the only likely reason is that we are on the same power grid as an engineers’ barracks down the road (must keep the army happy). I don’t make a fuss about it, it seems that people don’t appreciate the more fortunate. What? You are not suffering like the rest of us?

Yesterday I caught a lift with Andre out to Chinhoyi to check out a small airstrip that we could perhaps use to winch up our paragliders. It was not great weather but the trip was a success and I got a reasonable flight to a nearby polo ground and we decided it was definitely worth another trip when the weather was less ominous. On the way out we chatted about the things that Zimbabweans chat about; power shortages, water shortages, milk shortages, where to find bread etc. Andre mentioned that a tree in his next door neighbour’s plot had fallen on the power line and ZESA had actually come out quite quickly to sort it out. He got chatting to the senior technician and was rewarded with some interesting but depressing statistics.

• There is all of 450MW of power available for THE ENTIRE COUNTRY! The mines get first call so no surprise that there is so little power left for the rest of us.
• Namibia did a deal with Zimbabwe and put some money into the power system. It means that we must supply them next year with 150MW. Given that Wankie is unlikely to come on line with anything significant, the power outages are only going to get worse.
• The fault that caused the outage in the northern suburbs could not be found because the tracing equipment was too old. They had to get help from Bulawayo.

So here is my prediction. This economy will eventually collapse, not due to the kindergarten economic policies of the relevant financial institutions but due to the lack of power.

Very occasionally we are treated to some genuine star performers in this little distraught backwater we call home. Angie Nussie is one. I had never heard of her so went along to the outdoor performance last night and was very pleasantly surprised. I guess I should not have been. Reluctantly slotting herself into the folk rock genre, she is an independent Canadian artiste who won Best Female Performer, Best Acoustic Act and Best Songwriter at the Toronto Independent Music Awards. She accompanied herself on piano and acoustic guitar before a small, appreciative audience. It is really nice to hear good lyrics with a good voice AND good music! Three out of three is very rare in modern music! It’s a pity more people were not there, but as is so often the case in Zimbabwe, advertising was poor for what was a worthy charity cause. Thanks to the Canadian Embassy for this one and if you have not heard her yet, you definitely should!

I think I have mentioned Brian before elsewhere in this blog. He’s a soil scientist who works regionally and likes to tell me how poor he is despite earning real money. He’s a genial guy who helps his son out preparing demonstration plots of the vegetables whose seed his son sells and we buy a lot of the seed into the nursery. Brian has a PhD in his field so he is a useful guy to know and I cultivate (pun) our relationship in order to glean information from him. We were chatting yesterday and he mentioned that a cousin of his who own a quarry just down the road was struggling in the current environment. I raised my eyebrows at this as I know that they have done well in the past. Apparently with even the price of quarry stone controlled this is no longer the case. The price that they are allowed to charge covers only the extraction of the rock and transport to the crusher. Thereafter it’s all a loss! Brian also has a partnership in a farm to the south of Harare. On mentioning that I was getting nervous about the power cut we were experiencing (watching the water level falling alarmingly in the main reservoir) he said that this year they were not even bothering to plant tobacco. Three hours a day was not enough time to irrigate anything substantial, and anyway, how would they cure the crop once harvested? Well, so much for Zimbabwe’s much vaunted once most valuable export.

I am writing this offline as the continuing power cuts in town ensure that is the case, so I have not had time this morning to check out my corporate bank account, but I have a confident feeling that I might actually be a billionaire! It’s something of a paradox that in Zimbabwe’s hyper-inflationary environment that electronic banking has become more and more the norm. I do wonder if we were in the older paper driven banking years the economy would actually have collapsed – it’s easier now to move money much faster and thus keep up with the inflationary demands. Anyway, I’m expecting some payments in that will definitely take me to billionaire status. Value in real money? About US$1000.

– But that’s really cheap scotch. Look, eight million dollars, that’s eight pounds. Where are you going to get a litre of scotch for that price?
I shone my torch at the price label, and sure enough it was eight million, or close enough. There was yet another power cut in progress and for some reason the booze shelves were in the darkest corner of the supermarket. Luckily I carry a pocket torch and more than a few people had used it. It seems we are now in a situation where the power supply is interrupting the absence thereof.

I pointed out that the wine was also pretty good value at a pound a bottle for a very reasonable quality South African brand. I’d already bought a substantial quantity of the latter for just that reason, it was remarkably cheap in real terms. Yes, I know that I don’t earn real money but I guess we are all looking for ANY good reason to still be here, no matter how artificial it is. I duly loaded up one bottle of scotch and three of wine.

Malcom, who’d pointed out the amazing value of the scotch, is an infrequent customer of mine. He lives a short distance up the same road as my business and is a successful farmer though he’s had a torrid time in the past few years hanging onto his farm. He likes to chat and although fishing is the topic of choice just chatting is fine. He told me that he’d been approached by a next door neighbour who’d “acquired” his current farm and was looking for a business partner for his son and wouldn’t Malcom be interested in return for political immunity? The background to this is the recent Indiginisation & Economic Empowerment Act that has just passed through parliament and is designed to get “those who were disadvantaged prior to April 2000” (the date of official independence) a share of the diminishing corporate pie. It’s a blatantly racist piece of legislation (whites apparently, can never be indigenous but then were all blacks disadvantaged prior to the said date?) but as usual it has not been well thought out or drafted. In reality it seems that the authorities can only call for 51% indiginisation in situations are those involving a merger that could lead to monopolistic practices, a demerger above a certain value, a change in the controlling interest in certain businesses where that interest will be above a certain value, and investment in prescribed sectors where an investment licence is required. Stay clear of that lot and the minister can do zilch. In theory. It has not stopped the opportunists trying to take advantage and pressurizing the likes of Malcom into parting with a controlling interest and then most likely the whole lot.

It would be silly of course to generalize that the whole of the ruling elite are racist though I would be prepared to bet that a lot of them are. Malcom is on friendly terms with the aunt of a very high ranking political figure and he mentioned his problem to her. Her advice was direct; “Malcom, don’t even entertain him. It will all be rosy until they think they are well entrenched and then they will force you off”. Sadly most of the likes of this lady have been driven away by the absurdity that is Zimbabwe. It’s no secret that the ruling elite never wanted a black middle class to emerge and in this they have succeeded admirably.

I wandered around the rest of the supermarket (though it hardly qualified for supermarket status as there seemed to be little in the way of anything to buy) and then wandered out with my prizes. I felt sort of pleased that I’d got a bargain but something inside told me it was really just a “bargain”.

Some things are genuinely cheap though. Today I sent my driver out to the rural district council to re-licence my vehicles. It cost a total of US$9.00 to licence 3 vehicles for 8 months. I suppose one could argue that it’s worthless because you get nothing for it but the reverse is also true!

One of the absurdities of employing staff in Zimbabwe is the “system” of allowances. Those earning a wage (as opposed to a salary) are entitled to a host of allowances for lighting, fuel, water, accommodation and transport. This is one of the few countries I know of that does this. I have worked in a number of countries in jobs where I definitely earned a wage and it was a case of; here is your pay, do what you like with it. It was my choice where I wanted to live and how much I wanted to pay for transport etc. Here the allowances are set by often less than amicable agreement between representatives of the employers’ union, the workers’ union(s) and the NEC. The National Employment Council was set up by the government in one of its very few moments of clear thinking to arbitrate between the various unions and facilitate agreement on minimum wages and other issues. In reality it’s just issues pertaining to money.

The wages for agriculture and horticulture (which for some reason is believed to be more lucrative and therefore must pay more) have been increased massively to cope with rampant inflation. Allowances, which were truly pitiful, have also increased but the various unions agreed that the employer must pay the actual cost of transport. This is fine where staff take a bus to work but not very helpful where there is no transport or they choose not to use it. You might think that it would be easy to see what the actual cost is of a bus. Think about that for a bit. What third world bus conductor issues any form of ticket or receipt? My labour force for the most part live about 4km away and have always walked even when there was a semblance of a transport service; transport allowance went straight to the pocket as one would expect!

Today I went with a senior foreman and the workers’ committee to the local NEC offices to try and break the deadlock on what transport allowance I would offer. My initial offer was nil; what is the incurred cost of walking? New shoes? I supply those anyway. No, I did not expect to get away with that but one must always start out as low as possible. Progress was slow until the CE called in and suggested that we go with a proportional system, i.e. find out what a bus elsewhere cost and pay a proportion for the distance walked (this would be fairer on those who actually did some distance compared with those who live very close by). I immediately saw  that with current inflation we would have monthly rows over what the bus was now charging (inflation is about 10000% remember?). So when a fixed value was suggested for all those not living on the premises, increasing by the same percentage as the wage each month, I reluctantly gave in and agreed to it. It will increase by about 35% over the next 4 months. OK, call me heartless, but I am tired of the tail wagging the dog and being told what bonuses they will work for (but that’s another chapter). Anyway, I am not supposed to be increasing my prices (I have anyway) so how am I supposed to cover these increases? This whole system worked much better when the allowances were so low as to be meaningless and I just had to keep increase the wage to keep people working for me.

In the meantime the NEC is going to look for a better definition of incurred actual cost of transport but in an aside the official who was mediating said it was not going to happen as the current situation benefited the employees’ union. So I guess I won that war. Of course next month the labourers will come to me and complain that their wages are insufficient so we will have to up them (which is also illegal) just to keep going. So I could be prosecuted for increasing wages AND prices!

I have it on very good authority that our emails and other electronic communications are now being monitored. I have commented on this elsewhere but now it is a reality but I am still sceptical that the powers that be can do very much with what must be a flood of information containing the key words that they are looking for, most of which will have no bearing on any “security” issue. The logistics of manually reading every email that has been filtered are enormous for any organization. I say this because I am in the process of completing the “Form of an annual return of a company” which is required to do for any companies that you own. On the back page “company” is spelt wrong three times, twice as “comapny” and  once as “Comapnies”. If the spell checker cannot get it right…