A Property Development Diversion

Laura and I have been keenly interested in remaining flexible while in Mozambique, keeping an eye out for the greatest needs and adjusting our work as necessary.

It should come as no surprise that the harvest is plenty, but the labourers are few. There’s no shortage of work for us to do here, but matching the greatest needs with our skills and interests is an on-going challenge.

OMS, the organization that we are attached to while in Mozambique, is developing a post-secondary institution that will offer seminary training to aspiring pastors.

By North American standards, the project is relatively small. Once completed, it will be a 15,000 square foot, four-storey concrete block and glass structure.

On several occasions, the project manager for the facility construction has asked for my assistance to keep the project moving along.

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Maputo is a sprawling city whose many low-rise concrete buildings are due for more than just a fresh coat of paint. Much of the city was built by the Portuguese and, when they fled (which coincided with Mozambique's independence in 1975), they left behind a void of professionals and skilled trades workers. Buildings that were under construction 30 years ago remain unfinished, though where possible the completed floors are occupied.

This isn't to say that people in Mozambique lack the capacity to build and maintain major infrastructure works; rather, that it's incumbent upon the leadership of a nation to train up its people with the requisite skills to do so. The Portuguese withheld such education in decades passed, and Mozambique still suffers for it.

It would appear that safety regulations are almost non-existent in Mozambique. I recently heard of a gentleman from South Africa who witnessed the stringency of safety regulations in Canada and wondered how we ever get any work done. I suspect that someone from Mozambique would wonder the same of South Africa.

I've seen a hard hat on the construction site once. It was upside down, full of water, being used by one of the workers to clean some tools.

The project is behind schedule by several months. In fact, by the original schedule it should have been completed before I arrived in Mozambique. Here's just a flavour of the challenges faced on this project:

• Labourers who have a very real and immediate need to feed their families. In the African context, it is not practical to withhold significant payment because the workers are quite literally hungry. Payment in small amounts -- even $20 at a time -- is often a strong encouragement to maintain the project’s momentum.

• Several contracts with sub-contractors are for labour only, making it our responsibility to ensure that materials are present -- a risk they will not accept because of the difficulty in securing supply, and because they don't have sufficient working capital to carry an inventory. For example, the labourers who have been hired to lay tile on the hallway floors and bathroom walls ran out of materials earlier this week. I travelled with an assistant to nearly a dozen shops over two days before finding tiles -- similar in colour, and not quite the right size. But close enough.
  

• Business that is transacted largely in cash, which requires a strong record keeping discipline. Imagine trying to build a college without writing a cheque. To add to the challenge, the project’s contracts and suppliers deal in three different currencies: Mozambican meticais, South African rand and US dollars.

• Not having assurance of the funding necessary to complete the project. This is typical for not-for-profit capital projects, since potential donors often want to see a building rising out of the ground before committing their donations.

• Design coordination issues (and incomplete designs) that need to be managed. This is a problem with construction around the world, but is exacerbated in a culture where, according to author David Maranz, “People tend to accept immediate, cheap, or even quasi-legal solutions when dealing with business matters, rather than take care of matters properly, deal with technicalities or delays, or incur additional expense.” (Maranz, p. 182.)

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After visiting the 12th shop, I returned with Geraldo, our Mozambican project assistant, with my small car loaded with enough tile and grout to keep the workers busy for a few more days.

When we arrived, the tilers were sitting around playing a game of checkers -- one side using bottle caps, another side using small stones. Geraldo called them over to collect the new materials, yelling (in English), "Come on! Time is money!" He looked at me and laughed, wondering if I'd ever heard that expression. The tilers wouldn't have understood the words, and even if they had've been in Portuguese, wouldn't have understood their significance.

"I heard someone yell that in South Africa once," Geraldo explained to me, with a grin on his face. "Those guys work hard."