If the backbone of the national economy needs subsidy, then we are probably in worse trouble than we realized! If a breadwinner needs charity, is he still a breadwinner?
Agriculture is not the only sector where myths abound. In industry, business model inertia rules supreme. There is a lot of hollow optimism based upon fallacies. There are many industries and even mines chasing long outdated business models and hoping against hope to recapture some peak capacity they once achieved back in the mists of history. The scaring thing is that sometimes I wonder whether my business model is not out-of-date too!
Fortunately, in spite of the general doldrums, there are pockets of incipient trade winds. By far the brightest ray of hope so far was the official adoption of real money, US dollars in February 2009. Business is so much more meaningful with real money. There is now plenty of motivation to take on even small jobs that were not worthwhile two years ago. In hindsight, we never fully realized just how much our wallets were haemorrhaging at the hands of a hopelessly mismanaged local currency and the parasites that came with the territory.
Businesses with appropriate models are blossoming. The newer supermarkets are a case in point. As far as choice of merchandise is concerned, we have never had it so good. The other day I saw even Sharon fruit straight from Israel at a local supermarket! Not many people here know Sharon fruit so the shop had a merchandiser handy explaining to customers what it was.
The amazing choice we now enjoy is but a symptom of more profound underlying transformation. In spite of political rhetoric extolling the virtues of sovereignty and territorial integrity, the evidence on the ground suggests otherwise. In 1922, a referendum was held in Southern Rhodesia to decide whether to become a province of the Union of South Africa or go for responsible government. They opted for responsible government. I am sooooo glad they did. South African apartheid was a lot more severe than the Rhodesian version.
In an amusing twist of fate, present day Zimbabwe is now a de facto province of South Africa. The milk in my fridge was packed in Stellenbosch, South Africa. My local supermarket
is indistinguishable from South African ones. For more serious shopping, we go to Johannesburg, South Africa. To travel abroad, we generally go through Johannesburg. The visa requirement for travel to South Africa has been scrapped. When Zimbabwean political power struggles get too noisy, South Africa’s President Zuma drops in every now and then to read the riot act to the feuding “provincial governors.” Having run our own national currency aground, the South African rand is now one of a number of foreign currencies adopted to constitute legal tender in Zimbabwe.Since independence, we have not been faithful with the little we had. I am reminded of the Bible verse, “ ‘Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents.’ ” Mat25:28. Given enough rope, bad managers eventually work themselves into a corner.
Personally I am not quite there yet. My business is not exactly blossoming but it has come a long way this year. If nothing goes wrong with my current order book, then I might even afford a holiday next year, at last. More importantly, business assets now exceed liabilities. Two years ago I had plenty of liabilities and virtually no assets left in the business. Fortunately my business model as well as my personal life entailed only minimal baggage, so I managed to weather the economic meltdown. God has been good to me in that respect.
One lesson I have learnt vividly is that it is not only the book assets that matter to a business. Loss of human resources to emigration left me in the lurch at one point.
In hindsight, adversity led to better things. Emigration of a key electronics subcontractor forced my hand to upgrade the Gwatamatic controls from an embedded system
to a programmable logic controller (PLC)
A PLC is the industrial equivalent of a PC. It is more expensive than an embedded system but extremely robust and versatile. It is the versatility that I am finding most exciting. It promises to open far reaching doors well beyond the Gwatamatic. Sometimes we need a crisis before change can have a chance.To make the most of the new opportunities, I went on a PLC programming crash course earlier in the year. My tutor Osborn
is arguably the foremost PLC authority in Zimbabwe. What is not arguable is that he is an extremely bright man. In fact in the Cambridge Syndicate Ordinary Level School Examinations of November 1987, he came out the top student in the whole of Zimbabwe. It is quite a privilege to learn under someone like that.The theory behind PID controllers (a key control subsystem incorporated in a PLC) can be extremely mathematical. So I have enrolled for more core mathematics modules in my UNISA studies for the year 2011. If all goes according to plan, I might complete my maths degree in the year 2012 instead of 2025!
My nephew Adrian completed his mathematics degree this year, much to my envy. But then again, he was studying full time. In fact it was a bumper year for the family. Three grandchildren graduated from university this year and we had a family party the other day in their honour.
They are from left to right; Fungai (business studies), Adrian (operations research and statistics) and Nyasha (medicine). Not bad considering my father was the first literate person on the paternal branch of our family tree. His link to literacy was remarkably tenuous. Evangelist Shamuyarira, (father to Nathan Shamuyarira) established a school in our ward in the thirties. He would go round the villages trying to persuade children to come to the school. The children’s parents did not know what school was, so they were skeptical. Furthermore the evangelist was preaching Christianity, which was contrary to the prevailing animistic religion. So they would advise their children to run away into the bush when they saw him approaching.After a series of frustrating attempts, evangelist Shamuyarira eventually came up with a winning formula. He would now bring a wind-up gramophone to the villages. The novelty of it was enough to entice the children to break cover and edge in cautiously to investigate. Before long the children were dancing to vintage music! That way he won their trust and successfully got them to school. My father was one of the children. That was our tenuous bridge to literacy.
The next bridge I could do with is a bridge to wealth. In his annual letter of the year 2007,
Warren Buffet advised his audience never to rely on one source of income. That advice
struck a chord with me. Accordingly I am now putting more commercial
emphasis on my subsidiary inventions. The following have now been commercialized:
the tsotsomatic (a domestic size portable solid fuel cooking apparatus);
the steamatic (a cooking platform that converts an ordinary saucepan into a steamer);
the kotomatic (an avocado harvesting implement).
They are all small beer relative to the Gwatamatic but they do help the overall cash flows.The braaimatic (a vectored braai (barbecue stand)) made its debut this year but it is still all but under wraps for now because I am considering patenting it first. Suffice it to say it had its maiden run at Derrick and Sara’s braai party on 23 October 2010. I hope I did not annoy you too much Sara.
Unexpected fame came my way this year. During the year I was invited to be a guest speaker on intellectual property protection (patents, trademarks, copyright that type of thing) at three high profile events as well as radio and television interviews. The most daunting one was the Law Society Summer School. I was invited to lecture lawyers on intellectual property law. I was well aware that those guys have spent years studying law full time while the scraps of intellectual property law that I know were picked up informally. How could I lecture to them?! In the end I decided to turn the assignment into my kind of fight and spoke on intellectual property from an inventor’s point of view. To my relief, they seemed to find value in that facet of it!
As a fugitive, I have to change my contact details from time to time. In the New Year I expect to progressively decommission my zol email address and migrate towards gmail.
From now on please use this address for me: gwataw@gmail.com
I wish you a wonderful Christmas and a good New Year.
