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

Monday, September 26, 2005

Missive from Nigeria

What can I say!. No internet access of anything to speak of for a few days and a trip down south to the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Business of course as Nigeria would not rate very high on my “to visit on holiday” list.

I was impressed that a visa was issued by the Nigerian High Commission 24 hours after I handed in a completed visa application. I could not get a multi entry due to my non resident status in Ghana, but they were most helpful – even if they only start dealing with Joe Public at 10am. (could be the late night embassy parties I hear about – chuckle-)

An air ticket was a simple process of toddling in to my local travel agent and asking for the $99 special offered in their window. True to form the $99 special became $185 when taxes were included. Flight departs at 15h55 on Wednesday.

I spent the obligatory 90 minutes at Kotoko International waiting for the flight and when I was to sneak my obligatory pre flight ciggy in the loo – yes they still do not have smoking facilities once you have gone through passport control, - I realised I left my lighter in the car. Curse – Swear

A one hour cattle class flight on Virgin-Nigeria crammed into a seat smaller than the SAA flight – I never knew they could get smaller, I was quite happy to read my book.

Passport control and customs in Nigeria no problem at all and all told it was one of the more pleasant experiences at an African airport. Kudos to the lads there where due.

No luggage to collect as everything fitted into my hand luggage and I found Festus O with a nice sign just outside the door.

“The plane was delayed?” he asked
“No” was my response.
“Oh – your email said you will arrive at 16h55”
“Yes – and it is 16h55” I said as I looked at my watch.

Strike 1 Tony – Nigeria is 1 hour ahead of Ghana. Poor old Festus and driver had been waiting for over an hour as I did not pick up on the time difference. In retrospect I should have as Nigeria is on a different time zone in the DSTV guide. *chuckle*

Desperate for a ciggy, I demanded to go to a place where I could get a lighter. Festus stated quite happily that I could wait until we could get something at the hotel. I did patiently explain that I needed a cigarette and I needed it now, so a lighter was an immediate requirement that could not wait until I reached the hotel.

Festus was most accommodating and took me to a restaurant in the airport. When I looked at him rather strangely and said they did not sell lighters here, he quite happily replied, “It is late but you can get Lunch here”.

And so once again the Tony “speed talk” fails with someone who has just met me. I explained a lot slower that I needed a lighter or matches for my cigarette and understanding dawned on his wonderful mooned face.

I was most impressed how accommodating he was, as he proved he was prepared to take this strange South African to Lunch at 6pm. We did have a good chuckle about it later on when we discussing the fact that I do speak to fast and have a strange accent.

Accommodation was at the Lagos Sheraton at $400 a night. In two words “Rip Off”. First and last time I am staying there and quite honestly, the service was not five star. The people at the check in bordered on surly and the beer was twice the price we have paid in our travels to date.

What is Lagos like? A bigger version of Accra, with better roads. That said, the traffic is still gridlocked and you have the added issue of hundreds and hundreds of 125cc motorcycles to deal with. JAAC. (just another African city).

Next morning was onto a local flight to the city of Calabar. Nice clean city. Not much traffic. Helpful people and generally a nice place. We did two site visits and were meant to travel to Port Harcourt by road, but finished too late to do the trip. We stayed at a nice hotel ($100 a night – eat my shorts Sheraton). The food was good, the bar was quiet and the beer almost cold. One thing that did spoil the night was continuous power failures and the 30 odd seconds it took for the gensets to kick in.

It rained continuously and the roads and surrounding countryside reflected it. In some country’s they would have called the situation a flood. In Calabar it was “The Rainy season”

Next day was a crack of dawn start for the trip to Port Harcourt to pick up another driver to take us to some funny place in the middle of nowhere.

Now Nigeria’s roads are reasonable. Narrow in places, broken in others, but generally reasonable. All our drivers (and we had four over the trip) seem to believe that the speedometer is not an indicator of speed, but a target speed to achieve. The drive was flat out with the hooter sounding at anything that moved – or did not move- as the case may be. I made a note to request an increase in my life insurance if my trips to Nigeria were going to be common place.

One bit of excitement (and I will post a picture) was a road wash away with a veritable river around 1 meter deep flowing across the road. The place was a truck graveyard with broken down trucks littering the landscape. A coke truck had come away from its trailer, another had overturned and had a broken chassis etc etc.

Our driver after a slight hesitation, followed the local river guide and did not falter in the 30 or so meters of “river crossing” Score one for the driver and his Audi.

Port Harcourt? Did not see much of it as we drove in, dropped off Michael Schumacher and picked up Juan Pablo. The city is large – traffic jams abound and according to press reports had just finished with a shoot out between Federal forces and the local youth club. Apparently the Nigerian lad that had been detained in the UK with 1 odd million pounds in cash at his house was the Governor of the State. The lads took great exception to their elected official been arrested and decided that British = bad. Considering that Port Harcourt is an oil centre they shut down a couple of pumping stations owned by “British” and ended up having running battles with the local federales in the streets. From press reports a few deaths, the detention of the local pres of the youth league and two warships accompanied by loads of armed force type people with an assortment of automatic weapons.

I digress from my travels to marvel at a few things in Nigeria.

Everyone you speak to talk’s politics and corruption in the same breath. The general man in the street is really unhappy that the elected officials are pulling the ring out.

There are approximately 20 newspapers produced a day. A free press definitely exists and is very outspoken on the rift between the pres and vice pres, the death of a civil rights activist in a car accident, the 2007 elections, the “murder/suicide/no idea” of the MD of Mobitel, which incidentally is in liquidation, the arrest of aforesaid Governor and the fact that he was sold out by the pres, the possibility of the pres pushing for a 3rd term and changing the constitution, the difference between the states, etc etc.

The immense wealth of the country and the piss poor state of the infrastructure.

The constant power failures – Swaziland…… you were a saint 15 years ago as you have nothing on Nigeria today. Apparently they have an installed capacity of 6,000MW of which some 50% is in operation.

Their oil revenues are 2.4 million barrels a day of which 40% is used locally at $40 a barrel and the remainder exported at spot prices. They still import refined products though as they do not have enough refining capacity.

The people are generally friendly and enquire about your trip, your health and the health of your family on a regular basis.

The fact that there are police/army roadblocks every 5 odd kilometers all armed with an assortment of automatic rifles/ Quite friendly but once again if press reports are to be believed not averse to shooting the odd person who riles them. Press reports over the last few days bemoan the fact two people have been shot dead at the same roadblock in the past week. Our driver displayed some secret pass which meant we almost slowed down from our 150kmph as we approached the road block.

Bandits are a reality, and our driver on the route to Benin City was hunkering to leave before it got dark. We ended up traveling at night causing the “oh my God, my life is flashing before me” syndrome as the lights on the vehicle rivaled a hawkers candle for brightness and it was nothing for people to be traveling the wrong way down a highway.

Benin City was a large city with the obligatory heavy traffic and an amazingly large traffic circle in the middle of the city. We visited the museum there which had some really interesting artifacts, but as is usual with museums no photos were allowed. A tad run down, but very interesting never the less.

We also visited the local market and were once again treated to the definition of poor hygiene. I am convinced that this is part of the reason for the high mortality rates in places such as this. The sight of fish, meat and a few items that I could not identify covered in flies and offered for sale was a reminder that Pick and Pay is a really nice place.

The flight from Benin City was on a Dash which was the best flight of the entire trip, with good legroom and pleasant air hostesses.

The hotels were generally good – although Benin City Plaza could do with some maintenance – and all running at $100 a night as an average. I did learn that one needs to take bathplugs as none of the hotels had them (and wadded toilet paper breaks up into ugly chunks in the water). The food was good, but pricey. The service was rural and the beer tasted good.

No Captain Morgan in the part of the world *sigh* I really must have a chat to the people that manufacture the stuff that West Africa is wide open for dark rum.


So dear reader. Here I sit in a hotel in Lagos on a Sunday afternoon bored out of my skull and watching Meg Ryan on the TV. Oh yes – and typing a blog for posting tomorrow.

I have finished my report on Nigeria and that will also be emailed forth tomorrow.

I miss my contact with South Africa and in hindsight should have got a pay as you go. I did believe that internet access was simple, but I had access at the Sheraton and in Benin City. Slow, expensive and generally not worth the money that was spent. One also has a great deal of fear that public computers have key loggers on them…….

Tomorrow morning I am been collected by a driver at 5am for a flight back to Ghana at 7am. The most interesting part of this part of the trip is I leave Lagos at 7am and land in Accra at 7am. The joys of time zones.

I go back to a month end, visit by my Financial Director and all the fun stuff that happens when Albert is on R&R and two new contracts are starting.

On the plus side….. It is less than two weeks until I head down south for some well deserved R&R!!!!!

And fark – we all know how I am looking forward to that!!

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Nigeria

I am currently swanning around Nigeria with patchy and expensive internet access.

I am doing some blogs off line and will post them on my return to Ghana on Monday

Hope you are all having fun - and god willing - if the drivers do not use the speedo as a target as opposed to an indication, I will make it home safe and sound.

To my boss!!! I want more life insurance!!!!! demmet!!!

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Corruption and its side effects

There were two things that perked my interest while I was reading today’s Daily Graphic on the loo.

The first item refers to previous blog entries where I waxed lyrical about the new computerized allocation system for students.

There has now been a definitive statement from GES that no pupils shall be admitted to schools unless such admittance is as a result of the “Big Brother Computer”. Chatting to my accountant (after I was finished on the loo), he appeared quite happy with the new system as the old system was fraught with corruption.

It appears that headmasters only admitted pupils to their schools once their palms were suitably greased. (the old maxim of supply and demand springs to mind). To gain admission to a good school could cost you dash of GHC 5.000.000 (ZAR 4.000) which beggars belief as the average salary for a middle manager is below that level.

There was also a system of “agents” who you would have to “employ” to find the place and deal with the headmaster. The system was corrupt to say the least.

So dear readers. I withdraw my reservations about the new computer system (save for my comments about there not been enough schools), and happily say the lad whose butt I kicked needs to return the kick as he has done a good thing.

The one problem that will arise is that the economy will take a battering as the headmaster will not be earning GHC 250.000.000 a year above his salary and the agents are now out of business. Methinks there is going to be a few houses currently being constructed in Cape Coast that will come to a grinding halt!

The second item also relates to the culture of bribery and deals with the arrest of a lad for impersonation of a police officer, theft, unauthorized possession of a police uniform and resisting arrest.

Now we all know that police officers are paid a pittance and have the uncanny knack of supplementing their income by arresting me for speeding or failing to display the correct sticker on my vehicle. I assume I am not the only lad who contributes to the police ball on a regular basis.

What made this case stand out was the fact that our bright imposter dressed up in the uniform and (wait for it) reported to the police station to “introduce himself”. When it became apparent that the lad was not well versed in the ways of the police the real cops decided to detain him, at which time the resisting arrest charge kicked in.

Not the brightest lad our imposter, although it would be nice if all potential criminals toddled off to the police station to introduce themselves.

For his wondrous efforts our lad is now wearing a prison uniform for the next five years.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

A blog so soon after the last one??

Tis a Tuesday in Tarkwa and I am Blogging once again.

Why you ask – goodness, please do not tell us that you are actually going to blog regularly? We cannot take it!!

Now that we have the sarcasm out of the way, I do have some time available due to everything been up to date and me not been in a very client friendly mood. Ergo – No client visits, some time spent chatting to the lads about cost cutting and numerous emails about anal sex. (do not ask and I will not make you jealous! – hehe)

The weekend was an interesting one to say the least.

I traveled off to Wassa on Saturday am to do a small fire fighting job. The issue had arisen cause the boss man was not quite in touch with job requirements. (which boss man you ask…. Why both of us of course). I have been chirping the lads that they do not seem to be finishing jobs and there was a huge push this month to make sure all the orders we have on file are completed and signed off by the client.

When the GM phones this GM and says “the jobs are not been finished”, I accept what he said. The only problem is when I chat to my lads and their technical walla’s, it seems we cannot finish the one job as it cannot be started until we have a pump. The pump of course supplied by….. the client.

The other job for which we have all the material on site waits for the concrete to cure for seven - ten days. I am educated and the clients GM was not even there. Evidently he chatted to his lads after he kaked me out and learnt the real reasons as well.

That said, I was back at the office and did month end reports and overhead statements until around 4pm when I ran out of steam. A quiet evening at home, on the couch, watching TV and reading my book was in store.

Of course Rudy did not read the script. He phoned while I was on my way home and happily invited me to a braai at his place. Now Rudy has meat from South Africa which is not ruff and tuff like the meat here. So of course I went. Rudy’s house is also inhabited by the “spook of pass out”. I swear, everytime I have visited Rudy I have fallen asleep on the couch while listening to music.

This Saturday was no exception. The issue was we started at 4:30 and by 9:00 I was on the couch listening to the music!
For some reason, my eyes disconnected from my brain. SO much so that I was unable to even think about driving the 800 meters home and slept the night.

Sunday, both Carlos - yes he was at Rudy’s as well on Saturday – spent a very quiet day alternating between the couch and our bed. I slept solid from around 2pm – 6pm and Carlos only woke up at around 9pm. I caught up on a years sleep in one day!

Monday I woke up rather bright eyed and bushy tailed.

And it showed. Monday flew past at a rate of knots and the amount of work I actually got out was surprising even to me!


One thing I did deal with was a letter of demand from a local transporter. He was claiming GHC 10 million cause we ordered a truck and did not use it.

The facts of the case settled around on day 1 he provided a truck to transport a crane to Obuasi. Apparently you could not fit the back side of the crane on the truck let alone the front.

He toddled away and came back with a bigger low bed. The problem this time however was that the tyres were bald, it had no signals and definatly was not even approximating road worthy. Our safety officer chased him away.

For this he is claiming damages because we refused to use his scrap metal to transport a crane that is valued at 50 times more than he earns in a year. The mind boggles.

As my letter ended off….”any and all claims raised against the company will be vigorously defended”

My last post waxed lyrical about the new computer system Ghana Education is using to allocate places at high schools. Well it appears I was not the only one concerned about the development, and there has been a flurry of letters to the press as well as articles as to parents concerns regarding this new system.

Some government employee needs his butt kicked for implementing what to me is a foul system.

What else is there?

Not much

I am Naafi at the moment, it is 4 weeks until I get home (3 Sundays) and this may be a reason.

We are been graced with a visit from our head office walla’s just before I am due to fly back, so that should take care of the last 4 days of my stint.

I have to somehow fit in centre visits for this course I am doing, as well as get my eyes sorted out and get a full medical. The last two catered for by Nessers making the required bookings. 13th October is medical day for me. I am a tad concerned about how my left eye has gone all fuzzy in a few months. This from a lad who has had the same prescription since he was 15. (I am a lot older now). So best I spend some of my hard earned cash on visiting “them that can make educated guesses” and find out what is transpiring.

I have a tutorial due on Monday and another at the end of the month, so best I pull my finger out tonight and hit the books. That of course assumes the light bulb at the desk has been purchased.

Oh yes. I downloaded a wonderful little game called “Approach”. It is an old style air traffic controller game. Quite addictive! After downloading the crack it became even more addictive.

And that dear reader is my news

No humour…..well maybe a little

But as I did say – I as Naafi!!

Have a goody!!

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Radio Gaga

It has been noted that my updates have been very few and far between. Remiss of me I know, but judging that I am now doing way in excess of 4000km a month between Tarkwa, Accra and Obuasi, my time for sitting back and chilling into a blog is not quite there anymore.

One thing that my many hours in a car is proving – this week I calculated I drove for a total of 18 hours – is that listening to the radio is an education of note. (why am I listening to the radio instead of CD’s you ask? - Well some holier than thou in SA refuses to send through the new speakers and amp for the car and my two OEM speakers have died due to playing the music a tad loud.).

I pick up local radio for the first ¾ of the trip and BBC for my time when I am in Accra. Local radio does have a fair amount of talk shows – in a mixture of English and the local vernacular – which can be quite interesting.

One of the talk shows this week which I found rather worrying was the local education department waxing lyrical about a new computer system they had introduced which allocates pupils to schools. From what I could gather as a fair amount of the discussion was in Local, was that all pupils primary school marks are sent to a central point and based on your marks you are then allocated to a school.

The fun part about this? Well, no recognition is taken as to where you live. So you may live in Tarkwa, but because you a clever person you will be allocated to a Cape Coast School. (I gather all the really good schools are in Cape Coast). The visa versa also applied and if you were a bit doff you could be allocated to a northern school even though you came from a southern town. When asked about this, the lackey from GES quite happily said that pupils should board or stay with a relative.

I do ask myself what this does for family values and if it recognizes that ability of the parent to pay for boarding costs. The reason for this is simple. Government has not invested in educational facilities; therefore there is a shortage of schools. Rather than build more schools and train more teachers, they are quite happy to allocate pupils to schools and accept the high dropout rate that ensues.

This was also done so that Headmasters at good schools did not demand “dash” for children to be admitted to their good schools.

It is little wonder than why one sees so many children out of school when you drive. It is a sad state of affairs!

The radio also spent a lot of time on the doctor’s strike of 6 days last week. Apparently government doctors had not been paid their agreed allowances for a month or so and went on strike to force Government to pay the allowances.

Today on my drive to Wassa (3 hours drive, 30 minute meeting), one of the doctors from the GMA was defending himself from a public vilification as to how dare doctors go on strike as people would die. Noble view, but as the doctor quite rightly said, he can quite happily go work in the USA instead of stay in Ghana for the monthly salary of GHC 1.200.000. (ZAR 857; USD131.00) per month. Their allowance brings this salary up to GHC 3.600.000 per month.

There are obviously other benefits working for Govt. (housing, pension and the like), but I am staggered that a Doc can earn such a paltry sum for his skills. The callers complain that doctors only arrive at the hospital at 10am instead of 8am and work privately so they should not complain. Erm Hello!! If I got paid a pittance, I would use my intelligence and skills to supplement my income. As long as a decent wage is not paid, you will not get decent people to work. I am trying SO hard to work out why employers cannot accept this BASIC principle of management.

Our friendly Pres, J J Kufour stated while bidding the local IMF representative farewell that by next budget year, Ghana will not rely on the IMF for their “budgetary support” of $27 million per annum. That way they can rid themselves of the conditions required for fiscal management by the IMF.

The radio program waxed lyrical about how the “colonialists” maintained control over poor Ghana and the rest of Africa by dictating their economic policy. How Africa needed to finally get rid of the colonialists and do their own thing. All of Ghana ills were blamed on the damn British!

Now I am not a great fan of the Poms at the best of times (except for one special Pom), but when you consider Ghana got rid of the Poms 47 years ago, it does seem a bit rich to continue to claim that all the financial problems they are facing was because of them.

It was obviously not caused by the rampant corruption in Government. Had nothing to do with the great African “tradition” of never maintain something until it is broken. One should not even consider the fact that almost zero beneficiation gets carried out in the country.

Nooooo. It is so much easier to blame the colonialists.

Ghanaians need to learn that it is about time they take responsibility for what is theirs. Two generations have passed since independence. How many more generations are needed before the statement “we are fucking up” comes to mind?

As well as that, the naivety that by forgoing $27 million all IMF restrictions will fall away. Hello! Ghana has just been forgiven $740 BILLION debt. Do they honestly and truthfully believe that that debt forgiveness comes sans conditions? If they do (and I hope I am wrong) then they have a small surprise coming their way!

Ghana has already been prevented from issuing sovereign guarantees by the World Bank. There is no way that debt is going to be written off just to allow the country to over borrow again.

BBC comes up with some gems. An entire ½ hour dedicated to teaching the listeners all about genetic theory (oh yes! ½ way through the program the narrator mentioned he had just realised that 30 minutes was not enough to teach us all about DNA and Genes. No kidding Sherlock). How all cells reach a point whereby once a division is made, the cells get a specific purpose. Until then the cells are generic and if you remove a cell it can divide to make up a whole creature. How birds cells change a lot later in the division process then frog cells. Not sure where humans fit in the grand scale of division.

They then told us the amazing fact that the DNA on a fly’s wings is different from a cell instruction perspective when you compare the front and the rear of the wing. I mean this is stuff that I really wanted to know. The problem of course is this totally useless fact is burned into my brain forever!

BBC also has its daily 15 minute soap opera about a guy dieing of cancer and two lesbians (1 preggers by the Gay guy they live with) and their issues about been a threesome and having to hide the fact that it is in fact the lasses that are a couple as opposed to the pregger woman and the Gay lad.

One can also listen to some knowledgeable lad talk about classical music and how the standard tune has 7 notes but some bright composer decided that music should use all 12 notes available. In the purest form all 12 notes are used, and 1 note is not reused until all the other 11 have been used. He likened this to a Picasso Painting where the form is there, but is not quite standard around the edges. Once he plays the music you actually get what he says. Quite honestly though I am not that into music to analyse it to that depth. BUT once again I have a useless fact to add to my store.

So as you can see, I am having my small little brain filled with useless information instead of listening to House on full volume, which has the effect of putting the brain into suspended animation so as not to realise how long and boring the trip is. For that you can thank the little creature in JHB.

One thing is for sure though. It is only a matter of time before I have an accident. On each sojourn into the wild, I have at least two near misses with trucks/taxi’s that sit in the middle of the road and refuse to move. I look at the airbag with interest and ensure the safety belt is tight. My medevac number is also speed dial 9 on my cell phone. (That is assuming there is signal)

As our one client says “Cool Times Ahead”. (he has designed and we are building an underground air cooling system).

In my perspective, I hear morgues are rather cool!

Have a fun day everyone!!

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Japan - Ghana - South Africa : Why world wars start

There are certain times in life that you are having a conversation with someone and it becomes apparent after a while that the parties in each group are not on the same page. Sometimes the parties are not even on the same book. Usually one or more of the people are pissed.

Today I had one of those occasions. Not only was no-one pissed, but it was at 3pm in the afternoon.

I had occasion to hold a meeting with one of the motor company’s about a workshop in the mining sector. I was advised of their requirement by my plant manager and he was to set up a meeting for me while I was in Accra.

After being advised that the meeting was confirmed 10 minutes before it was due to start, I spent the next 30 minutes driving across Accra to the prospective client. I was fortunate enough to be able to advise them I was going to be late, as if they were anything like me, being late for a meeting is a definite no-no. More so if you want to do business with me!

I walked into the office, late, and somewhat agitated from fighting the Accra traffic just past lunch time. I was shown into a conference room where nine – yes nine! People were sitting around the table waiting for me. The company – as most motor companies are – is Japanese, and two of the nine people – one of them the MD – was indeed Japanese.

Nine people – five business cards (I had expected to see three people at max). As we are all aware, in Japanese culture, the business card is a most important item when doing business. I was late – and short of cards – Strike 2.

We then did the pleasantries and chatted about life and its importance while I battled to understand the extremely broad Japanese accents.

Onto business, and I launched into how good we were at building workshops, how professional our workshops would look and how it would enhance their image, etc etc. I also went into a big diatribe as to how we were used to the mines environmental and safety rules and would ensure that all would be good in life.

The then asked me why a construction business would want to get involved in this project.

At that point a little man should have tapped me on the noggin and told me all was not right. A bright lad who made it as the MD of a large office in West Africa should fully understand why a construction company would want to construct something.

Me of course decides marketing 301 (advanced) was required and listed the workshops we had built and why our price would be great.

They ask us what skills we have and the clincher “Have your people had any training from our trainers”.

That tapped me on the noggin. Finally I asked the question that maybe I should have asked at the beginning of the meeting. “What do you want us to do for you?”

I was there to build a workshop. They thought I was there offering to staff and run their workshop and do service and repairs on cars.

I walked out 20 minutes later having secured a date to pick up the design of the workshop so I could price it.

I walked out, shaking my head, cursing my workshop manager’s communication skills and cursing accents that make meetings so difficult.

I drove to my next meeting in the Accra traffic and finally saw the funny side of it.

I hope they did as well……………………………..