Africa at work...
Okay, this one is going to be a rant. Having wasted 4 hours off my time today at the local car licensing authority, I thought I’d share with you some anecdotes.
It is now a week and a half since Jer’ set off for Kiev. In this time, he has found a house, a made lots of good progress. Here, our successes have been somewhat more modest, which means we are still not ready to begin the journey North ! The bulk of the pain come from my determination to have the car documents perfectly in order before leaving the country, as it would otherwise be impossible to register it and insure it once in France. The ownership of the car however is a bit muddled: intially registered by CFAO (the Mitsubishi dealer here), the car bought by L’Oreal in 2003 through a leasing company. After 3 years, the lease was complete and naturally the car became the property of L’Oreal, who rightfully sold it to me. The problem is that for the DVLA (l’organisme qui delivre les ‘cartes grises’), the owner were still CFAO. After a fews days of chasing and haggling I eventually got the paperwork in order, but when I went to the licensing office to register the transfer of the car, they took 3 days just to find the bloody file in their record! Grrrrr !!! 
So this is what I have been doing for the past few days, waiting hours for some muppets to find they own documents. They found it eventually, but it was at 3 p.m. today, i.e. closing time. So, I have to go back tomorrow. Fortunately, I have enlisted the help of a professional broker to take me around the maze, but even though, it’s hard on the nerves.
So this is what I have been doing for the past few days, waiting hours for some muppets to find they own documents. They found it eventually, but it was at 3 p.m. today, i.e. closing time. So, I have to go back tomorrow. Fortunately, I have enlisted the help of a professional broker to take me around the maze, but even though, it’s hard on the nerves.As if it was not enough, the preparation of the car itself (due tomorrow) is also being delayed because the local electricity company decided to remove the electricity supply to the garage without notice. The owner, a French guy, former compagnon du devoir, has always paid his bills. So, he will spend his week-end installing a generator to keep his business going, as it will take a good 2 months to resolve.
I could also go about the story a friend was telling us about his chief accountant getting frustrated by a customer’s refusal to pay a delivery charge for the transport of a container from the port to Accra, i.e. about 30km. The accountant did not notice the 3,000,000 invoice had been nominated in USD instead of Cedis (i.e. £150).
Another good story is that of a matches factory in La Cote d’Ivoire, where employees regularly outsourced their work to poorer people. They’d rather pay out 20% of their 150,000 CFA (approx £150) salary and go after the girls, than work and keep it all for themselves... Talk about a management case study...
As I wrote some weeks ago, in Africa nothing is impossible, but nothing is easy. Well, this is where we are ! What does it mean for Africa’s future, well I am not overly optimistic :o/
Still stuck in Accra...
Thursday, 22 March 2007
Near Makola market -
Central Accra
