Missive from parts of Africa

A light hearted and sometimes serious look at moving 6000km into a place in Africa: April 2007. Promoted back to South Africa, the missive will continue to track my foray's into deepest Africa as and when I get there.

Name:
Location: Joburg, Africa, South Africa

Sunday, April 10, 2005

Sunday - Sunday - whoo hooo hooo

Tis another Sunday in the Jungle and life is made so much more interesting by the fact I continue to feel somewhat off – but loads better then on Friday – and do not have an air conditioner in my office. My aircon has gone to aircon heaven and we have to wait a while before I can buy a new one. So sweating is the name of the game!

I do suppose people pay good money to have a sauna, and here I am getting it for free. *chuckle*

The workshop is as busy as hell, and we had a meeting yesterday morning to discuss the jobs in hand and who was doing what. Just hearing the lads and how they are willing to take on stuff makes me smile and know what a great team we have here.

I was due to see two clients yesterday. One to discuss some work and the other to go through some invoices that he was unclear about. Well Client #1 was on a mission. Three hours later, I walked out of the plant, head swimming and needing to quote of 12 – yes 12!!! Additional jobs. I am still hammering out cost summaries today, and this will go on until tomorrow – where I still have to go see client #2.

I start my last week here and given the amount of stuff I have to do before Thursday it should flash by!



Running through the media I came across an interesting article that makes my blood boil. Headed “We will not develop NDC Strongholds”, it attributes statements to the NPP Regional Organiser which in effect states those areas that did not elect a NPP candidate will not have any funds allocated to them to develop those areas.

Democracy – Africa style – at it’s finest! A democratic party would censure the commentator. I will not hold my breath for that to happen.

An interesting advert from the VAT office, warns all VAT registered persons that the VAT service Ladies Assoc. will embark on a nationwide debt collection exercise. What interests me is they actually have a VAT Services Ladies Association and they are empowered to collect debts. I await their arrival with interest. (We are up to date with our VAT btw *chuckle*)

A published court order in the local press provided and order to settle of debt of some GHC 100,000,000. (R75,000). That was not the fun part, the fun part was the court also provided for the defendant to pay interest of 12% per MONTH. This was despite the original loan agreement providing for interest at 12% per quarter. Methinks someone is confused and it may be a learned individual.

Do I have much more news? Nope! Nothing – Nada!

So I go now !

Friday, April 08, 2005

Accra!

Tis a Friday evening and I returned from Accra at around 12 today, anticipating a busy time at the office. I was not disappointed. It seems like I have a full weekend of work ahead of me, with messages from three clients that my presence is required.

With Albert having rotated back on R&R on Wednesday – I am it!

Well the Lurgy has become a full blown flu with all the wonderful effects that flu has on the body. I am also taking malaria treatment tablets as a precaution and if I am not feeling substantially better by tomorrow, I do think it is time to take a test. This is all I needed a week before I rotate home.

That said – Accra!!!

It is actually the first time since I arrived in Ghana nine !!! months ago that I have actually spent time in Accra. Not very responsible of me, but for some reason I have found it difficult to get away from the Tarkwa region for any great length of time. When I do get away, it is on customer visits and they are unfortunately not in Accra.

I drove myself and had planned a client pre bid meeting, making contact with the ports authority to gain access to the port for one of our divisions and follow up on an airfreight parcel that did not reach the required destination.

I left Tarkwa at 11:30am to avoid (a) driving in the dark and (b) getting lost, and happily arrived in Accra at 5:00 pm after a rather uneventful journey. The road to Accra has improved a lot, and most of the diversions are now completed road. There was only one snarl up at a market around 10kms outside of Accra, but I am Ghana Proof enough to force my way into lanes that suddenly appear. These guys make a single lane road take 4 lanes of traffic so easily it amazes me. There was a cop on point? Duty and all he could do was shout at the people ignoring him totally.

I also got “caught” speeding. Only in this country can they use their little laser gun on the lad in front of you, and then quite happily pull both of you over. I gave my normal “what did you stop me for” speech, and when advised that I was doing 77kmph in a 50kmph zone I asked how they knew that if they had zapped the guy in front of me. A logical “because you were following him” was their reasoning.

I was amazed and reasonably pissed off that they could actually do this and wasted no time in telling said policeman that I was not wholly in agreement with him. (in my own special way of course). True to form I was “arrested”. I have mentioned before, in Ghana there is no such thing as a ticket or *legal* spot fine. You go to court. Of course court was “full” until Monday which meant I was to be detained until then. I am sure highly illegal etc, but hey the worst part about it is they actually can do it. The rule of law is wide in this country.

I paid my “spot fine” of GHC 400.000 with long teeth and continued my journey.

I managed to find the hotel with surprising ease considering I had stayed there but once before and it still been early I decided to take a recce mission to Tema which would be the location of my meeting the next day. Tema is some 30kms from Accra along the Tema Highway. A nice highway – with the obligatory roadwork’s – that culminates in a traffic circle of note. Sign posts are not Accra’s – or Ghana’s for that matter – strongest suites. Based on the assumption the port is near the sea, I headed for the coast.

Tema, peak hour, more traffic circles and 1000’s of cars does not make for easy driving, and needless to say I got (hopelessly) lost in the great town. After driving aimlessly for around an hour, I finally found the port (and around 80 churches, army training centers, peacekeeping barracks, rifle range and loads of hawkers). Deciding I had achieved what I had set out to achieve it was time to go back to Accra. Oh so much easier said than done! It was now dark, and quite honestly all my landmarks had vanished into the darkness that is only possible when 50% of the town has no electricity. I found a few traffic circles, got caught up in a horrific traffic jam which saw me move some 100 meters in 30 minutes and twice ended up on the road to Ho. (137km from Accra – yes that road had a farking sign post).

Eventually I asked for directions – yes I actually asked for directions. I still managed to get lost. *chuckle*. After a lot more aimless driving, I finally found the highway and ended up back at the hotel at 8.30. Yup – only I can turn a 1 hour drive into a 3 hour sight seeing trip.

Fortunately Zack had returned that evening from SA and I hijacked him the next day for the meeting. Zack has been in Ghana for eight odd years and spent two of those years working in Accra. He knows his way around. It was amazing how simple it was to go to all the places I had to when someone knew where he was going. What was also amazing was the one place where I had turned around the night before, would have led me straight onto the highway, had I just kept on going. All part of the learning experience.

That said – Accra and Tema is where we have to be. The potential business there is amazing!!

Food wise: Nando’s (of course) on the Wednesday and Zack took me to a sports bar for a steak on Thursday. Shades of Swaziland as it was obviously an expat hangout with loads of expats coming for the “Thursday Quiz” (In Swaziland it was the Tuesday Quiz).

All in all a successful trip opened my eyes to some opportunities and gave me an insight to the capital.

One thing about Accra’s roads is they are generally double laned freeways with an island in the middle. The one issue which is most frustrating is the fact that if you are heading West and want to turn across the road, you drive past where you want to go until you find a “U turn lane”, where you do a U turn (which is why it is called a U turn lane) and head East until you get to the place you want to be. Time consuming!

Another “innovation” is numerous traffic circles which instead of been run as a traffic circle should have cops on point duty defeating the objective of the circle totally. If there are four exits from the traffic circle, then you have four cops on point duty. All good an well if they are synchronized and allow traffic to flow around the circle, but a god almighty cock up when Cop A lets the traffic flow into the circle and Cop C stops the traffic in the circle. Result – Gridlock! Some shouting, the obligatory hooting and eventually Cop C realizes his error and corrects it, only to find Cop D stopping the traffic that cop C is now letting through.


And of course you have the taxi’s that ignore the cop and go into the circle anyway!

Traffic is Accra’s biggest challenge. It makes the concrete highway at 7.15am at the Rivonia off ramp look like a Sunday morning.

My head is pounding – I am sweating so much that my socks are damp and I am unhappy.

I go now!

Monday, April 04, 2005

Manic Monday!!! (with the lurgy!)

A small Lurgy sneaked into my window yesterday and attacked me while I was napping on the couch. These lurgies are devious creatures and wait until you are not watching before they sneak up on you. The fact my eyes were closed and odds are I was snoring fit to attract said Lurgy was enough reason.

Resultant effects, sinus blocked slid, sore throat and a head thumper which is fine when you have had a piss up of note the night before, but not much fun when the strongest thing I had to drink yesterday was bottled water.

I am an unhappy child!!

This week promises to be a busy one, with Albert off on his R&R come Wednesday and a tender to be completed by our lads in SA and delivered on Friday. SO you say – the SA lads are doing the tender, why is it such an issue to you!

Well the client – bless his little cotton socks – has set up a site meeting on Thursday and stated the tender shall be in on Friday. All this means I cannot go to the site meeting, return to the office and, on Friday, drop off the tender. I travel on Wednesday and come back either Friday or Saturday. Joys of living six hours by road from the main business centre.

I am out of respect for him and his office going to mention the death of Pope John Paul II and may he legacy live on. The television has been having program after program on his life, and I shuddered when I realised – well was reminded really – that he had been a pope for over 26 years. It makes me realise I am a bit of an old toppie cause I can remember him been elected pope after the last lad died under mysterious circumstances 31 odd days into his papacy.

We had a wonderful article in today’s Graphic about the Axim-Tarkwa road. This is the one that leads to the beach and subject of many a blog as to the poor condition. Well there has been roadwork’s by Taysec which apparently started in June 2003 and was due for completion in June 2005. According to Taysec the road is 67% complete.

Once again I blink my little eyes and ponder the vagaries of a % complete job. The road they are building is some 65 kilometers. Given that 0.65km does not equal 1% - I am not a silly lad and know that some parts are easier to build then others, one would expect some 30kms (46%) of the road to be complete. Or even 70% of the road to have been worked on. The basic fact that seemed to elude the Western Regional Minister is that some 10 km MAXIMUM has been tarred and some 10km Maximum graded. The remaining 40 odd kilometers are as they were two years ago, subject to a further two years of no maintenance and heavy vehicles.

The minister’s response - He commended the company for their good work so far…..

The company now has applied for an extension of time, which as we all (now) know in construction circles adds a hefty amount onto the contract in the named P’s & G’s

The pleasurable trip to the beach will not be seen in my time.

I actually watched “The Incredible Hulk” last night on Mnet. I must have been really desperate cause I have not, in a long long time, forced myself to watch such unmitigated shit! God help us if the loons that did this one decide on a “Hulk 2”

You going the wrong way!!

You going the wrong way!!
Personally I will not follow the arrow into the hole thank you! 4x4 or
no 4x4

And you called this dirt track a road?? Shame on you!

What you do when you open a store......

What you do when you open a store......And have no idea at all what you are going to sell!

Good Goods?

Good Goods?Of course there is a store somewhere in Tarkwa that sells bad goods....

Madness Abounds

Madness Abounds

One thing for sure, you have to be mad to eat in that bar - health
hazard of note *g*

Looming Thunderstorm!

Looming Thunderstorm!

The darkness overhead intensifies as the storm rolls in. A view from my
stoep

Sunday, April 03, 2005

Sunday - at the office

Sunday Morning!

For the first time in a while, I am at the office on a Sunday pondering the vagaries of the accounting system and catching up on National and International news. We have two big jobs concurrently running at the workshop, one of which is due for installation at a shut down on the 25th and all our lads are working hard today.

It is a pleasing sight to see the workshop in full swing.

It appears Obuasi is a little bit more of a crime centre then I bargained for, and on two occasions now our newly reopened operation has been robbed.

The first time our four security guards were overpowered by some 15 “thugs” (as the report put it), bound with wire and locked in the stores container. The aforementioned thugs then set about breaking into all the offices and store rooms and liberating all manner of tools and equipment. They also managed to get to the safe – which is a home made job of 20mm plate and concrete – and apparently spend a large amount of time attempting to open it. They even used our oxygen cutting equipment in their attempts. One can see they were not ex employees as they did not quite understand the concept of a cutting torch and saw it fit not to use the acetylene with the oxygen. *chuckle*

We would have however had the last laugh, as there was nothing in the safe at all. I would have loved to have seen their faces if they had managed to get the safe open.

The security guards were released in the morning by the relieving shift after they had spent a good hour at the front gates wondering why the night shift was not coming to unlock them.

Fully understand, dear reader, that our site is inside mine premises with the obligatory mine security at the “only exit” searching all vehicles in their customary efficient manner. The fact that our thieves had to have had a vehicle to cart away all the goodies they nicked and one starts wondering how effective mine security actually is. (I am safe with the knowledge our security are not going to do anything brave for the GHC 1.000.000 (ZAR 750.00) that they earn a month.

A few days later, the lads were back – apparently they realised they needed the gauges for the cutting kits they nicked. Oh yeah – and they also nicked out sign. (most probably to practice their cutting skills for the next safe they come across).

I do however have a feeling that our competition benefit from this theft more than anyone else. *sweet smile* Oh to have a bit of proof.

We now have radios to facilitate the security guards communication with our management there.

The security company’s suggestion. “Everyone in Obuasi “hires” an armed policeman to “assist” with security. You can apparently do that subject to a payment of GHC 3.750.000 per month. Chatting to one of the other company’s that are there, they currently hire one policeman and actually need two. But it appears there are not enough policemen to go around! The suggestion he received (and followed I may add) was to write a letter to regional police headquarters in Accra, requesting them to send more policemen to Obuasi so that they may be hired.

Now excuse me for blinking my eyes a few times. We pay somewhere in the region of GHC 100.000.000 (ZAR 75.000) taxes per month. I would assume that the police are a public service and if the crime problem is severe as it seems to be, the police will spend a bit of time and effort investigating robberies and attempting to catch the perp’s. Not hiring their force out as quasi private security guards. Again those that know me know that I am on the verge of writing a scathing letter to the local and regional constabulary about my feelings on the matter, but I do believe it will get the same response as my previous letter to the local cop shop about my imam alarm clock.

I have my camera in the car today as I took my time to admire the view on the drive home last night and have noticed the most amazing amount of signage that serves to bring a huge smile on my face. In order to do it justice I believe a picture is worth a thousand words. (sides my posts are long at the best of times *chuckle*)

It is now less then two weeks to home time… and I have reached ansi stage. This was evident last week where for the third time since I arrived here, I had a famous “Tony loss of temper, shout, swear and get the fuck out of my office” moment.

A local contractor was requested to price a job for us. He came in that morning with a quote for $2000.00 labour. For two days work! Four people! When I queried the charge, he basically said “tell me how much you want to pay me”. I was most polite and asked him to please relook at the quote and come back to me with a figure that would make both of us comfortable due to the fact I am not into horse trading.

That afternoon the quote came back in a really interesting format. Instead of a price for the job, he quoted me a price per 14 square meters. While dragging my mind back to school and how to calculate the area of a pipe (dia x pye x length for those who cannot remember), I ended up working out that the labour charge for the job I asked him to quote me on had now reached the princely sum of $2480.00. When this fact was pointed out, there was a lot of mumbling about how they had made a mistake and he would charge me $1000.00 for the labour.

A bit miffed I had a look at the material price and the quote was for 4 rolls at $2430.00 per roll. A quick dig back to see what we paid for the material a while back, led me to a cost price for him of $1340.00 per roll. All in all we could do the same job at 30% of the price that he quoted me. I then said “thanks, but no thanks” and was quite happy to leave it at that.

What got to me – and then caused me to lose my temper – was the lad decided to sit down and cut his price to what it should have been in the first place. Now I have a GREAT aversion to people who try and rip me off, and sitting at my desk watching this happen caused the brain to see red. Ergo the explosion.

After duly tossing the lad out of my office, I walked outside to find my temper which given the explosive force could very well have been somewhere far away. My entire staff were standing outside, and collectively gave me that “Oh my god, you are not going to carry on shouting” look as I walked out. I did make a joke out of the incident and after a lot of chuckling everyone got back to work.

I do not lose my temper often, but when I do, the fall out is severe. *sigh*

As previously mentioned it is Month End Report time, so let me at that!