Municipal workers dig trenches like these to replace rotten water pipework neglected by Zanu PF for decades but pose a danger to motorists and pedestrians alike by not barricading or signposting the works areas and leaving the trenches open for weeks. That is how tatty Zimbabwe service providers have become.The culture of entitlement and impunity that became entrenched in Zimbabweans over decades of being subjected to Zanu PF misrule is turning out to be a serious threat to ethical business practice that will cost the country heavily as it struggles to move out of the economic stabilization phase to economic growth.
There has developed over the years a pervasive unhealthy culture that the service provider and not the customer is the king.
The culture stems from the days when shortages were the order of the day and black racketeering was the accepted norm of doing business.
The service provider was placed in an advantageous position to profiteer and middlemen that sourced scarce commodities made a killing out of adding little if any value to a service or product.
Here are a few classical examples that I have experienced recently.
My vehicle windscreen had been smashed in one corner by a falling object and required replacement,
I had entrusted a close confidante to source quotations of how much it would cost to get the repairs done and was quoted a whopping $250.00.
On arrival I went to PG Auto glass in the Graniteside industrial are and was quoted $130.00 for the supply and fix job – a variance of $120.00 from what I would have forked out to my confidante had I accepted his quotation.
This translates into an entitlement mark up of 90.31% that would have accrued to my confidante for the trust I had placed in him to arrange for the repairs.
On driving the vehicle to the repair workshop I discovered that repairs would not be undertaken unless I had paid cash up front as per the quotation and since I had not carried enough cash I decided to drive off and return the following day for repairs to be done.
At that point the technician who was supposed to fit the new windscreen on my car came closer and advised me that the reason was that the replacement windscreens are never kept in stock but are sourced from the main dealers from the cash that customers pay for the quotations.
This amused me and I asked where they sourced the windscreens and at what cost to which the technician refused to disclose unless I guaranteed that he would have the fitting job after work for $80.00.
I agreed and he gave me a runner to go and buy the windscreen and requisite adhesive.
We drove to the Zimbabwe Glass Warehouse some 3kilometers away from the PG Auto glass workshop where I was told to wait a moment while my escort sourced the windscreen.
The waiting was prolonged as my escort approached several dealers and or workers to get the cheapest price as the lowest price of $55.00 he had been charged would have meant a balance of $25.00 for the adhesive and fitting job which requires at least two people to complete.
I lost my patience with him and entered the warehouse where I was told they only sell to dealers with VAT registration certificates which my escort and I did not have.
Undaunted I asked further and discovered that staff working for the Zimbabwe Glass Warehouse could equally purchase the windscreen for a fee and these were what my escort was targeting but their charges for the corrupt service had been raised from the usual $5.00 to $10.00 per purchase thus increasing the actual cost from the usual $50.00 to the $55.00 that my escort was having problems with.
Having secured the information I wanted I then pressured my escort to finalise the purchase protesting the time it was taking, He attempted to negotiate the price up to $90.00 to cover the unexpected underhand charge and make his own $5.00 profit to which I refused to accede and demanded that we go back to PG so he could appraise his principal -the technician-as to why he had failed to purchase the screen.
We did and the contract was cancelled when we could not agree on the price increase to $90.00 as I was now aware that this involved an extra $40.00 on the cost price of the screen and should the fitting not meet my expectations I had no recourse to recovery action against the technician that I would have if he fitted the screen under PG Auto Glass.
I had also discovered that the screen that was being sold to staff at cost of $50.00 was sold to VAT registered dealers for $80.00 and adding VAT to that would retail at $92.00 plus costs of adhesives estimated at $8.00 meaning PG was charging 30% for labour in their quoted price.
For me therefore paying $130.00 to PG was preferable than paying $90.00 to the PG technician to work on my car privately as his mark up of $40.00 was in real terms $10.00 more than the PG markup of $30.00 yet Pg adds value by employing the technician and paying Vat which the technician did not do in his private capacity.
The following day I drove my car into PG and it was fitted to my satisfaction.
Then I had the problem with water charges from the city Council which needed to be sorted out.
The water meter had not been working so I was being charged for an estimated 40 cubic meters per month notwithstanding that there are only two of my children living on the property.
Water meters are Council property but these days they no longer supply or replace them although they continue to charge for them in the water bill.
I had to source my own meter from a hardware shop in town who kindly advised me to take it to the Local Municipal area offices for calibration before I could get it fitted.
I drove to the Waterfalls Municipal offices where unfortunately I was told I had been wrongly directed by the retailer as I was supposed to take the meter to the Bishop Gaul Municipal Offices in Workington for calibration.
It was nearing 16.30 an I decided it was time wasting visiting the Bishop Gaul offices so close to the end of the normal working day because of experiences I had when I visited the organisation’s Rowan martin Offices the previous week to pay for the water and rates.
The estimated water bill of $85.00 turned up to be more than the average $30.00 that low density residence were advised to pay so I pulled out my cheque book to settle the bill.
“We do not accept foreign account cheques here and in any event we are about to close,” I was politely dismissed by the cashier.
Fortunately the supervisor was on the next service counter so I sought his intervention as I could not understand why in the multi currency financial order a Municipality would refuse to accept a cheque from a foreign account whose currency was in daily use in the country.
The supervisor explained that they did not accept cheques because they had not received deposit slips from their foreign currency transaction banker Kingdom bank.
I promptly asked for the account number so that I could go and do the transaction in the banking hall the following day if the deposit slip was really the issue and was given the account details.
The following day I was at the bank and deposited the cheque and suffered an additional $5.00 bank charge for the favour of accepting my deposit which charges should really be levied against the Account holder and not its clients if at all the charge is justified.
But then this is Zimbabwe where the supplier calls the shots and not the customers.
I was supposed to then take a copy of the deposit slip to the Municipality as evidence that I had indeed cleared the account but I did not and will not do that until they come to turn off supplies where I will show them the copy as evidence that I had paid the account.
Back to the water meter so it was that I was at the Bishop Gaul Offices with the meter to have it calibrated so I could take it back and fit it.
To my surprise I was asked if I had already been to the Zinwa Offices at the corner of Second Street and Speke Avenue to have the meter recorded and issued with a calibration certificate which the Waterfalls Area Office made no mention of the previous day.
Obviously I had not done that and was promptly advised to do so if I wanted the Municipality to have anything to do with my gadget.
It was too late for me to go there and come back in time for them to calibrate the meter and in any event I had not carried the purchase receipt which was required in the registration process at Zinwa.
As if that was not enough burden passed onto the customer, the calibration would not be done instantly while you wait but you had to leave the meter behind and collect after 3 hours.
I negotiated to leave the meter behind while they did the calibration and asked if I could given the receipt to take to ZINWA the following day together with the proof of purchase of the meter numbered in the Bishop Gaul Street Offices receipt.
The next day I paid the Zinwa Offices a visit equipped with the two documents and was given the calibration clearance certificate to take back to Bishop Gaul offices and redeem my calibrated meter which I grudgingly obliged to.
Before leaving Zinwa I took the certifying officer and her engineer to task as to the logic of having offices whose work is complimentary situated 3 kilometers apart and was given some lame excuse about the shortage of appropriately qualified Zinwa staff to Station at Bishop Gaul and the Speke avenue offices and the need to minimize fraudulent activities in the registration of the meters in the calibration offices.
I asked why the burden had to be placed with the consumer to commute between the two offices and not the Local Authority that is so diligent in trying to protect its consumers against fraudsters and did not get a satisfactory answer.
But the obvious answer is that the Municipality is expropriating consumers’ meters by registering them as its assets and exploiting them to run its administrative errands because it is a monopoly in the supply of water and if the customer does not oblige they will be charged exorbitantly for estimated water consumption that they hardly ever receive and consume.
Equipped with the calibration certificate I headed for the Bishop Gaul offices to collect the meter and finally fit it but there were more surprises in store for me.
I was given the now green painted meter alright and told it to take it to my local area office to have it fitted.
I went straight to the waterfalls Area office where to my surprise I was referred to another Waterworks department which is some 5 kilometers away from the Area Office.
I had had enough and lost it completely. Here I was at my area office which had failed me in the first instance by not replacing the broken meter and thereafter overcharging me for water that was ever a trickle and when I bought them the meter they did not advise me properly when they sent me to Bishop Gaul offices instead of the Zinwa offices first.
After doing all the work they are supposed to and for which I pay for in rates and water charges they were contend to send me anywhere and everywhere instead of them servicing me as their customer.
I told the cashier I had had enough of their inefficient service and would not go anywhere else other than the Area offices where I was from advice I had been given at Bishop Gaul Offices and if the plumbers were located elsewhere it was up to the office to let them attend to the job at my residence.
“We have no means to contact them as they have the only vehicle for the district and their landline is down,” they informed me.
It only added to my fury and I threatened the supervisor who was making this lame execuse with the sack as I was going to take the meter to Townhouse and leave it there if he was not willing to perform his duties.
It is only then I learned the plumbers had a business mobile which the area office was prohibited to phone from the landline and they had run out of credit in their mobile.
I offered them mine and was soon talking to the Plumber who insisted I had to drop the meter at his workshop.
I reminded him that his job was to serve customers and not the other way round and told him that I was leaving the meter with the supervisor at the area office and expect it to be fitted before the close of business the same day failure of which I was going to come and collect the meter and take it to the Director of Works’ Office and narrate my ordeal at the hands of the service providers in his frontline offices.
I terminated the conversation and drove off leaving the meter there with the supervisor cashier. Within 30 minutes the Plumber was on the line seeking directions to my residence claiming he had collected the meter and wanted to fit it which I gladly gave to him and he was there within ten minutes.
The meter was finally fitted much to my relief. The plumber attempted to squeeze a bribe from me to attend to a leak on the stop valve after the meter but I gave him an eye that told him he was treading on dangerous territory and he fixed the leak with thread tape that I provided when he complained he had not brought his full tools because of the ultimatum I had given him.
That is the sad service culture Zanu PF misrule has bequeathed the country.
The banks in Zimbabwe accept payments from foreign account holders and transfers from those accounts through MONEYGRAM. Western Union and or Telegraphic bank to Bank transfers.
They until last week refuse to dispense cash to such account holders citing the effects of forex transactions restrictions they were operating under Gideon Gono’s tenure as the Zanu PF economic turnaround point man.
While giving these excuses they were already accepting the same cards to be swiped at their point of sale terminals in supermarkets but refusing the outlets permission to even allow limited cash back facilities as is the case where point of sale terminals are in use globally.
Under these circumstances and needing substantial cash to pay contractors I had engaged to renovate the house I made arrangements to be sent the money via Western Union.
I went to collect the cash from the Standard Bank Africa Union Square Western Union Officers where the woman officer at the reception counter would not allow me to fill the collection form on a disused counter in the hall but outside the banking hall.
After complying and submitting my claim form to her she would not allow me to stand in the banking hall waiting for my turn ordering me to sit on the hard benches provided for waiting customers.
When my turn to be served finally came around the cahier dispensed the notes and retained 55 cents without so much mentioning that she had done so and her reasons for doing that.
I would have not bothered but the control freak at the reception had started my adrenalin running long before I got served so I questioned the shortage whereupon the cashier explained that she had no coins and they routinely left any coins unpaid for that reason.
I quickly counted that there were about 10 people served ahead of me in a space of one hour and at that rate the facility was capable of serving 80 people in the 8 hours they worked and if each was to be docked 50cents the cashiers will have $40.00 in unclaimed funds which they could share between themselves and resolved I was not going to be swindled like that.
I offered the cashier 35 pence and requested that she give me a dollar but she refused and said she was not authorized to accept the coins by her management.
I was livid and went to the manager’s office to demand my 50 cents. The duty manager was at first surprised to see a customer making such a frivolous demand but when she realised how angry and serious I was she struck a conciliatory note and explained that the matter could have been resolved by the cashier accepting the pence I had tendered.
She asked me to return to the counter and wait for her. When I arrived the control freak receptionist would not allow me to stand in the hall to which I told her to go to hell as it was not an offence anywhere in the country to wait for a service while standing.
The waiting customers she had rudely instructed to sit down before me were automatically turned on my side as they felt the offensive receptionist had met her match.
She would have none of that and went to call a security guard to ensure that I was seated or removed from the banking hall.
A dreadful miscalculation as she later realised when I told the security guard of and as I was giving the guard the lecture of his rights and mine the manager arrived and told him and the receptionist to leave me alone as I was under her care.
I was told to go back to the same cashier who had served me and declined as she was serving another customer much to the surprise of the manager who had to wait until she was through with that customer.
She was promptly instructed to accept the pence I had tendered and pay me out a dollar which I gratefully accepted and left with an air of triumph.
It was a victory worth celebrating after the banks had seemed impervious to my other suggestions as to how they could overcome the setback of severed relations with VISA.
These examples of the service culture prevailing in Zimbabwe serve to highlight the problem that is faced in doing business in the country and the gap between international customer expectations and the local customer expectations that have to be harmonized.
Fortunately consumer resistance to the culture is increasing and customers are beginning to demand value for money through demonstrations such as the one against the City Council over charges for no services staged recently.
The unfortunate part of it is that Zanu PF will cease the opportunity to turn the demonstrations into mayhem to further the resistance agenda against the coalition government but the government will have none other than itself to blame if the situation goes out of hand.
Zesa no longer replaces stolen armoured electricity supply cables and electricity meters while Municipalities no longer replace broken water meters they use to bill customers and demand that customers supply their own hardware which they will fit.
In the case of Zesa they demand that customers provide them with pickup transportation if they want the faults to their premises attended to timeously.
They are extorting residences’ property and recording them as their assets and further charging for them for utilities they have fully paid for.
That must be stopped and wherever customers have supplied hardware the Councils and
ZESA are not in a position to supply they must be credited back the costs on their bills if the Parastatals are to legally claim the hardware as their assets.
The service culture in public institutions has a contagious effect on service culture in private enterprises
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