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In February Alex has to get tough with the authorities . . . Wednesday, 01 February 2006 "Well, that is January out of the way. It was a tough and depressing month that led me at one point to tell the project development manager, Evans Mweemba at ZNTB that I no longer cared if they gave me a licence to operate or not and would pull the investment if they do not comply to the terms of my letter. Of course that has put me into a bit of a dilemma because it would not be that easy to get everything out of here and they now have four weeks to my imposed deadline. "I have booked my ticket to London and will fly on 2nd March almost the last flight out allowed on my one-year ticket. I have not yet booked the flight back but hope to return just a week or so later. It all depends on whether I can jump the last hurdle that immigration has put before me. In my latest trip to Kent House, I did finally get to go through the papers with a Mr Munamonga. It seems that there has been a staff rotation and this new man at least new to my case is a little more willing to help than the previous officer. I handed over more supporting documents including the tax registration certificate, PAYE registration and a NAPSA receipt to prove that the business was legitimate then I had to dig out copies of the fax and emails I originally sent to the Clydesdale to prove that the investment money came from there. "Finally Mr Munamonga said to me: Now you have done your part, it is up to me to do mine. "The question now is, will he? If he does his part, will the board approve the permit and will the Chief Immigration Officer sign it? There is nothing I can do but wait and hope. I was thinking about the stories of how those tortured and held hostage come to be truly grateful to their captors for the smallest mercies and favours and can almost draw a parallel here. I felt genuinely grateful that after seven months of bad treatment that a man was willing to throw me a crumb of hope. In that move he made me forget all my rage and frustration and I left his office smiling and laughing. How utterly absurd was that? Sunday, 12 February 2006 "Twelve days on and I still do not have my self-employment permit in my hand. However, I have seen the file and the red biro scrawl announcing approval. Mr Munamonga said that I can collect it next week so I shall head up to Lusaka again on Wednesday or Thursday to do that. Can anything more go wrong? It turned out that the emails were not enough and I had to get the original transfer instruction from the UK. Fortunately Jon was in at Russell Court and was able to dig out the transfer for me, scan it and send it by email. Thank goodness he decided to rent my flat. "Getting to and from Lusaka is very hard at the moment. The road through the Eastern GMA has been torn up by the tractors from Royal and elsewhere making huge deep ruts in the soil and we had to actually build stretches with picks and shovels so the Land Cruiser could pass. Even then we had to winch a couple of times, once to keep the vehicle from slipping into a steep gully on the side of a difficult slope and again to drag us out of knee deep soft mud. It was actually raining on the way out so, once again, I was doing the stupid thing because of my insistence that I get out of the valley on Monday. "I am thinking pretty positively now. The ZNTB have confirmed that the licence application will go before the February board and I just hope that they pass it then. If they decide against it, I can make a plan but I think it will be approved now that I have escalated its status back up to Charity Lumpa. "I have also confirmed my flights back to the UK. I fly to London on 2nd March and back to Lusaka on 13th March. This limits my time in the UK but should be ample to get all the things I need and update my status with the UK authorities such as tax and so forth. Monday, 13 February 2006 "There is a phrase that I have now used often enough for it to become a bit of a slogan when making plans in this place: Trust nobody rely on no-one. Hoping to save the odd Kwacha here or there I try to get my plans to fit in with others only to find that theirs change and no longer work with mine. Even when I am doing someone a favour I get let down. The other day I went out of my way to pick up rations for the Community Camp staff from Jordan only to find that no-one had bought them. It looks as though I am going to have to drive out of here on Wednesday to get to Lusaka. "I have just given my first staff verbal warning to Chrispine for speaking Nyanja on the radio. It upsets me that the guys take too many liberties and use the radio for chatting too much, actually the thing that gets me the worst is that it makes me look bad because it appears to the rest of the valley that I let my staff members get away with whatever they want. However, rules are rules, and I have to let them know who is boss occasionally. Tuesday, 14 February 2006
"Yesterday afternoon Kelvin sprayed the grass with a chemical to kill off the mosquitoes and last night there were very few about. This morning though, it is raining and all the stuff will be washed away. My conservationist credentials are being washed away too as the reality of life in the bush leads me to make more and more decisions that I find gnawing at my conscience. I certainly never saw myself covering my little area of bush with pesticides when I first came to live here. "Wow, it is raining hard now. Saturday, 18 February 2006 "Back in camp after a busy few days that produced a major victory. At last I have my self-employment permit and am legal for another year (to 13th February 2007 to be exact). Having been such a long hard struggle I could only mutter disgruntled thanks to the immigration officer who handed it over which was not very polite as I am sure that she, personally, had nothing to do with its delay. I did not celebrate. "I heard from Riccardo that there is cholera in the valley and cases have turned up in both Chiawa and Mugurameno. That is seriously worrying and means that I am going to have to be more careful with water consumption for the next week or two. Monday, 20 February 2006 "It is a funny thing this rain. When I do not have to go anywhere I rather like the camp when it is pouring down. Things work here and there are no leaks or problems caused by the water (touch wood, grab a rabbit) so I can comfortably sit in my office and type away or simply contemplate as my staff huddle in their tents in the compound getting miserable. They are miserable because they want to go home and the crew change is unlikely to happen as transport more or less shuts down in this weather. Thursday, 23 February 2006 "Midnight thirty the tent moved from below. The first time I have ever felt the Earth tremble. There was a moments silence from the frogs as they felt it too. I later confirmed from the BBC that here had been an earthquake if the coast of Mozambique. "Adrian and Anna felt it too and thought that they were being attacked. None of us mentioned anything at first all of us uncertain as to what it may have been. I had expected there to be a bit of radio chatter about it this morning but it seems that everyone in this valley sleeps very soundly. Tuesday, 28 February 2006 "Just when I thought everything at CC Camp was sorted it turns out not to be the case. I got an email from Beauty Chengala at ZNTB yesterday, a day before the deadline which shows that they finally took me seriously. It seems that I have been granted a licence but can only operate when certain conditions are met. The first of these is a tax clearance certificate. I do not know what that is, but am advised it is something that can be obtained in a day. The other thing that they now want is an Environmental Brief a kind of condensed Environmental Impact Analysis. That could be a stickler and I will have to get that sorted when I come back form the UK." |
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© Afrikeye 1999 - 2007 (certain items under permission of original copyright owner) |
"I
just had a rather special visitor, a tortoise. It walked across the front lawn,
doubled back and climbed into the braii and then had a look around before
climbing out again and heading off down to the river.