Corruption

Anyone who has worked, lived, or even visited Africa can probably give multiple examples of corruption witnessed on this continent. Sadly, Zambia is no exception to the typical trend and what follows is just one example of corruption. Last week we travelled to Mkushi to order the remainder of our building supplies and to arrange delivery for this week. We needed all the roofing materials, some additional cement, and supplies for plastering walls and finishing the floors. After having so many problems with the hardware company we used last time, we decided to use a different company. We found a very nice and helpful man who runs a small hardware shop. While he couldn’t offer us free transport, he was able to get all the supplies we needed at reasonable prices. He also helped find us a truck/driver and negotiate an ok (although not great) price. The only thing he doesn’t supply is the timber, for which we had to go to the neighboring shop. The timber shops sell 2x4s at K65 each (a little over $10), but agreed to offer us a discount since we are an NGO and we were purchasing several hundred for the project: this brought the individual cost down to K62.5. Of course, we are always delighted to take any discount we can get and work hard to negotiate the best deals in order to stretch the donor funds as far as possible for the ultimate benefit of our students. On Wednesday all the supplies and transportation had been arranged to we went back to Mkushi to pay for the items, load them on the vehicle, and bring them to the construction site. Everything seemed to go very smoothly for once, until we requested a receipt for the timber. Receipts are often difficult to obtain as many times you are hiring an individual for piece work/ unofficial employment, or you pay a private vehicle to drive you to town, or you purchase items from a small stand. There are no receipts for these unofficial types of organization. Because of my training and commitment to being financially accountable, we have devised a system of having individuals sign our account logs when receipts are unavailable. Fortunately, the timber organization is somewhat legitimate and they actually had a receipt booklet they could fill in and sign, they just had to collect it from nearby. We waited patiently while the man went to fetch us a receipt. The issue arose when we were handed a completed receipt for the 240 planks at the undiscounted price. Upon explaining that the total amount was incorrect, the man looked confused. He finally said that he was giving us all the timber we needed and also giving us the (unrequested) opportunity to skim the discounted amount and use it to line our own pockets. We explained that we were not that type of organization and that we wanted to account for the actual amount spent instead of a false receipt. The poor man was now both confused and a little hurt that not only were we ungrateful for his “assistance”, but we actually wanted him to go and write another receipt for the actual price paid. Ultimately, we were unable to get another receipt from this man and now have to make notes in our records as to why the receipt does not match the price paid. Corruption is so widespread here that it is almost assumed that everyone is looking for opportunities to line their own pockets. For us this is an important reminder to not only hold ourselves to a higher standard, but to constantly ensure that our future employees are not lapsing into the common culture of corruption. It is even more proof that we personally need to be here on the ground to oversee management and ensure that funds are not diverted or misused. Although there are lessons to learn from this experience, it is still sad that as an organization we require more paperwork and diligence in order to operate legitimately and avoid the rampant corruption that surrounds us.