Breaking bad

When I was here before we were asked by the Mayor of a large provincial capital to help him improve the rate of collection of the municipal taxes and charges. He knew that one of the sources of his unpopularity – and that of the national government as well – was the prevalence of tax collectors legal and illegal who seem to appear from nowhere and demand payments that appear completely arbitrary. There were 40 different taxes, payable daily, monthly or annually. The Mayor was open to a complete overhaul of the system: one that would work for the city as well as the residents.

We loved the idea, and enthusiastically designed a census of all businesses that would allow us to calculate what each should pay and when, and have a proper record of the location of each business. What’s more we would give each business something they had never had: a street address. Each one would also – and this was the biggest achievement – receive a statement showing how much they should pay and when.

We helped the Mayor to develop a user-friendly revenue collection office, and rationalize the staffing, while cutting the number of tax collectors from about 40 to 10.

The results were truly impressive. Tax payers loved it. They were much more willing to pay. Corruption plummeted as the tax collectors had clear targets and had to account for their receipts. Total receipts more than doubled, while costs had been dramatically reduced. USAID, for whom we were working, were impressed and insisted that in the next project (the one that were are working on at present) be repeated in 10 – 20 more towns.

For the Mayor this was an opportunity for self advertisement, and he wasted no time in bragging about it. He boasted about his achievements in international conferences and soon he was on the steering committee of the association of Francophone Mayors. This took him to meetings all over the world and he began to see himself as a truly international celebrity.

With this achievement and the warmth of international acclamation behind him, he decided to reassess his situation. Although he had boasted about the successes in collection, the system had removed an important source of income. Before this project he had been receiving a percentage of all receipts. He was under severe pressure to give jobs to his hungry extended family. Luckily, the interfering USAID project had ended, so he was no longer under scrutiny. His mind was made up.

He scrapped the whole system, hired another 20 tax collectors who were answerable to him and settled back into the old ways. He once more has a substantial income and can look his extended family in the eye.After all he is appointed by the President. When I was here before we were asked by the Mayor of a large provincial capital to help him improve the rate of collection of the municipal taxes and charges. He knew that one of the sources of his unpopularity – and that of the national government as well – was the prevalence of tax collectors legal and illegal who seem to appear from nowhere and demand payments that appear completely arbitrary. There were 40 different taxes, payable daily, monthly or annually. The Mayor was open to a complete overhaul of the system: one that would work for the city as well as the residents.

We loved the idea, and enthusiastically designed a census of all businesses that would allow us to calculate what each should pay and when, and have a proper record of the location of each business. What’s more we would give each business something they had never had: a street address. Each one would also – and this was the biggest achievement – receive a statement showing how much they should pay and when.

We helped the Mayor to develop a user-friendly revenue collection office, and rationalize the staffing, while cutting the number of tax collectors from about 40 to 10.

The results were truly impressive. Tax payers loved it. They were much more willing to pay. Corruption plummeted as the tax collectors had clear targets and had to account for their receipts. Total receipts more than doubled, while costs had been dramatically reduced. USAID, for whom we were working, were impressed and insisted that in the next project (the one that were are working on at present) be repeated in 10 – 20 more towns.

For the Mayor this was an opportunity for self advertisement, and he wasted no time in bragging about it. He boasted about his achievements in international conferences and soon he was on the steering committee of the association of Francophone Mayors. This took him to meetings all over the world and he began to see himself as a truly international celebrity.

With this achievement and the warmth of international acclamation behind him, he decided to reassess his situation. Although he had boasted about the successes in collection, the system had removed an important source of income. Before this project he had been receiving a percentage of all receipts. He was under severe pressure to give jobs to his hungry extended family. Luckily, the interfering USAID project had ended, so he was no longer under scrutiny. His mind was made up.

So he scrapped the whole system, hired another 20 tax collectors who were answerable to him, and settled back into his old ways. His income secure once more, he could get that Mercedes he had been thirsting for. And although civil society might shout about his corruption and obvious abuse of power he doesn’t mind. After all he is appointed by the President.

What a shame!

Friends in strange places

It was Saturday morning and we were surprised to have someone ringing the door bell. Waiting to be let in were two men in yellow jackets, the sort used by road workers to make them conspicuous, holding a massive can and sprayer.

“From the city,” they said, “part of the insecticide program.” They showed us a letter announcing them as a “service Flit”. It brought back memories of those Flit sprayers we used to have, with the little pump and circular can for the liquid.

“We are not paying,” we said, “we didn’t ask for it.”

“No, no,” they said, “it is free.”

So we let them in, and they sprayed all round the house. When they had finished, about ten minutes later, one of them said:

“I remember you, you lived at the Residence Equateur, and you had two dogs”. He remembered my name as well.

It was extraordinary, and we had, indeed, had the same people spraying our previous place. Having thus lowered our guard he asked for N’s phone number, which she gave him.

The next morning, Sunday, we had another visit. The security guard had brought them up, and they were standing there expectantly, in the same gear with the same spraying equipment. BUT, it was a different pair. This made us feel uncomfortable, but we let them in.

“Why are you here?” we asked, “we had it done yesterday.”

“That’s because we have to do a follow up,” they said, and then they walked quickly into the bedrooms and sprayed voluminous quantities over the floors.

It took a while for us to make our point.

“That’s enough,” we said, “we don’t need any more. And we are not paying,” we added, ”we were told yesterday it is free.”

They left, as suddenly as they had arrived.

We looked at each other.

“How did this happen? How did we let them in?”

We both had the same feeling. They were bad people. We quickly did a check in the bedrooms they had sprayed. It looked as though nothing was missing . . . but you never know.

We sat down, the sinking feeling in our stomachs getting stronger by the minute. Something had to be done.

The next day, I took the letter, allegedly from the city, to the office and asked our friendly administrator to call the landlord and the security service to check whether these people were legitimate, and what the rules were about letting such people into the property. She wrote a stiff email in support of her phone call.

Meanwhile the friendly one had been phoning. Twelve times, just on Monday morning. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, and now seemed to be expecting some payment.

The landlords said they had not requested the service, and the security service said that such people should not have been let in without asking us first.

Two days later, they turned up at the gate again. The security guard said they couldn’t come it, whereupon they started getting angry and demanding to be allowed in. The security guard obviously had a secret button, and the rapid response team arrived within minutes to support him. They were followed by the police. When they saw the police they started to run away, but they were followed and caught.

What happened next we don’t know, but now we have another worry. Will they try and get revenge?

Who knows?

  

Kissing fest

In the good old days, it was considered foreign to shake hands except at very special occasions. A retired naval man told me, with typical pride and self assurance, “we only shake hands once: at the first meeting. Never again.” Barristers take it further: shaking hands with another barrister is strictly forbidden.

Then the foreign habit started to spread, and shaking hands became more and more normal. In Africa it is huge, and in some settings you are expected to shake hands with everyone before and after every meeting.

But wait, there’s more. Increasingly, at social occasions when arriving and leaving women must kiss everyone, while men shake hands with men and kiss the women.

To make everything more elaborate, in the Congo we’ve adopted the Belgian/French (not sure which) habit of three kisses to the cheek – left, right, left. Which means that if there’s a big gathering, saying hello and goodbye can take quite a while. Last night we went to a dinner party attended by seven women and 5 men. By my calculations, this means that there were over 100 kisses that evening.

Very friendly.

A belated Christmas story

The Congo is very religious, with the Catholic church counting about 70% of the population in its flock. So Christmas is big.

Much to our relief, though, there’s not much commercial exploitation of the festival. A few Christmas trees here and jolly lights there and that is basically it. The only shop that has gone wild is Shoprite, a South African supermarket, that’s pushed out its regular special offers in favour of Chinese laughing santas, plastic Christmas trees and crackers. A couple of shops have had their “Joyeux Noel” signs up the whole year – why bother to take them down, only to put them up again 11 months later?

This doesn’t mean that it is not the season for giving, and as the day approached tensions rise. Walk around town during the week before Christmas and total stranger will come up to you and ask for a Christmas present. Staff are given a thirteenth cheque as the office closes down on the 22^nd, and supplies of rice and chicken run low as employers buy for their staff.

But why wait until the last week? A lot of expatriates go away for Christmas, so the seven employees in our compound (three security guards, gardener, stair cleaner and two additional night guards) decided to tackle the problem head on. They composed and printed a multi colour Christmas card, in English and French, for the eight families living in the block, with the customary greetings for Christmas and New Year. This was given to each household in a smart envelope three weeks before the big day.

It couldn’t be ignored, so we had to embark on a research programme. Would they want food or cash? Or something else? If cash, how much would they expect? Each person had a different answer, but there was a rough consensus that cash and food was generally what was expected. And if food, it should be rice and chicken. Someone had the bright suggestion that we could save money if we bought the rice in 50kg sacks, and the chicken in a 25kg box of pieces.

Sure – it saved money but. The chicken was deep frozen so we had to thaw it out enough to separate the pieces – a slow and messy business. Ladling the rice from the sack into used plastic shipping bags also took ages. Rice has got a way of spreading itself, like toast crumbs, so we ended up with rice all over the kitchen floor.

Anyway, it’s done. When I got back from work after the first distribution had taken place, the security guard on duty followed me until I had parked the car. Standing formally in front of me he said, “I would like sincerely to thank you, on behalf of myself, my co-workers and my family for your generous present. We wish you a very happy Christmas and a happy new year. May God bless you!”

That made it all worth it.