Being a consultant: feeling a fool and getting paid for it

We are a team of three. Each carries his own notebook and /or laptop computer. We are in Katanga to sell – sorry invite interest in – the idea of public private partnerships. It seems a good way of helping the government overcome its crippling lack of capital finance and skills.

We traipse around the offices of local government officials. To each one we politely ask anodyne questions such as “what is your population?” or “what are your priority projects?” As the official replies each of us dutifully records his answers in our notebooks. “Population 220,000.” “Top priority a better market.” Etc. We nod wisely. As we leave, we thank the person profusely, while he turns to his number 2 and asks: “What was that all about?” Sometimes a spark is clearly lit and one can see that there might be a real opportunity, but for the most part we are just another donor dangling a carrot but ultimately never allowing them to eat it.

We also go to civil society organisations. They have had many experiences of getting things done, and their successful projects are those with minimal government involvement. They clasp their hands earnestly, promise wholehearted support, and wish us good luck.

And then of course, we visit the private sector. In general this is represented by huge business – the mines. They assume that we are begging, as everyone else seems to do, and at that level are willing to talk. But when we say that we want them to invest, and in a partnership with government, they smile sweetly and pass us to an underling who only knows about their poverty alleviation programmes.

But it’s not all like that. Picture this. We are in a cavernous warehouse type of space. There are no windows to the street. There are no ceilings and light comes from a few low wattage bare bulbs. This is a supermarket, Likasi-style: the biggest in the town. The stock is on bare shelves on the walls, and much of it covered thinly in dust, giving the whole place a sense of abandonment.

We are seated in front of the proprietor, a Greek man who has spent his whole life trading in the Congo, and has the necessary strength of character to survive. You can see it in his jutting jaw, fierce eyes, and the authoritative way in which he speaks. He looks at us consultants with a mixture of incredulity and mirth. Not malicious, mind you. Just amazement that anyone could be as naïve as we seem to be.

His message is a familiar one regarding the impossibility of running a business in the DRC, let alone collaborate with the government, made more striking by his own experience. He has recently built a bakery. To get the necessary electrical connection he had to pay $70,000 to the (nationalised) electricity company. Once the bakery was operational he received a bill for the first month’s electricity consumption of $7500. When he checked with other people in similar businesses he found that the tariff he was being charged was three times as high as theirs. Why? Because they thought he could pay – as evidence of which he had already spent $70,000. So now he’s closed the bakery and put many people out of work.

Talking about our idea he enjoyed being very blunt. “It won’t work,” he said. “You’re wasting your time.”

We all obediently write: “we’re wasting our time” and felt even more foolish than ever.

While there we took the chance to buy a few things, and look at his system. Clearly, since he had been in the business so long he was doing something right. Indeed he is considered to be one of the three leading business people in the town.

On the one side is the booze shop, well stocked with wine and spirits from all over the world, and incongruously, bread and rolls lying loose in huge wooden coffin-size boxes. On the other side are all the canned goods, toiletries etc.

There are no tills, because there’s basically no need for change. The biggest note is 500 francs, about 50 US Cents, and the two other notes in common use are 200 and 100. That’s it. The money is all change. The cashiers stand behind a long trestle table. They add up the cost on manual calculators, take the money and wish you good day. Once they’ve got a bundle of 25 notes of 500 Francs, they put it on a shelf behind them. They are supervised by the owner’s wife who also sits behind the trestle table on a high stool and supervises them like the men hovering over croupiers in casinos. Periodically she takes the piles of 25 notes to the owner’s desk in the middle of the shop. He glowers at them, makes a note on a piece of paper, and dreams of Greece.

A model for Likasi he might be, but definitely not for Walmart.