|
Killing The Goose by Marek Patzer
A friend in
Siavonga was recently complaining about the yearly schlep of
renewing a liquor licence for a hotel. “You first have to get a fire
certificate which involves an inspection.” Interesting; in Lusaka
someone was telling me that you just cough up K400,000 and the fire
certificate is issued without an inspection. Anyway, once the Fire
Certificate is in hand then adverts must be placed in the Government
Gazette and one newspaper to advertise the application. Once that’s
done then a written application to the Zambia Police to request
another inspection. This time by the Police. Then another letter to
the health inspector for a further inspection. Then another letter
to the Chief Medical Officer to request medical examinations of all
staff. Once all the inspections have been carried out and the
reports collected then one can officially apply to the Liquor
Licencing Board to renew the licence. The application must include
copies of all reports and a payment of K1,379,000 plus an additional
liquor licence for a houseboat (if you have one) at K504,000 … and
this despite the fact that all liquor served on the houseboat comes
from the hotel already armed with a liquor licence.
Now with the
liquor licence(s) in hand the annual Hotel and Managers Licence is
available to be renewed at a cost of K2, 900, 000 not forgetting the
appropriate filling in of statutory forms. The next stage is to
apply via a 4 page application form listing all staff, client and
financial stats for the Tourism Enterprise Licence at a cost of US$
550. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg…
In South
Luangwa operators have the additional expenses laid on by the
Zambian Wildlife Authority(ZAWA) which include park entry fees,
vehicle and bed levies … costs which I’m sure apply to all lodge
owners operating in a National Park. There’s also community levies
on resources used from the Game Management Areas in South Luangwa,
anything from building and river sand to mopani poles and thatching
grass … that levy obviously does not include any costs for the
labour involved which opens up another can of worms wriggling from
health benefits to NAPSA … I glanced at an article by a priest
(sorry, forgot your name) in The Post recently all to do with the
”çasualisation of labour” … is anyone surprised that companies avoid
paying out all the benefits and taxes due to a worker by employing
that person on a casual basis … even for years! That legal loophole
is negotiated by laying-off the worker within the 6 month time frame
and then re-hiring. The workers mostly know what’s going on but in a
country where jobs are hard to come by one finds that workers bite
the bullet … to a point. I also read in that same article that the
government is aware of this practice and plans to address it. I fear
that the workers will be the end-losers.
I get the
impression that hotel and lodge owners would be happy to cough-up’
if all the money being sucked into the various government
departments was actually being used to improve services and
infrastructure … but it’s obviously not. Let’s not be naïve and hope
for heaven on earth but at least … please cover the bottom line? Bad
roads, power surges, shedding and brown-outs just add to running
costs … and there’s a fuel levy too.
It’s also all
very well to ‘sting’ hotel and owners left, right and centre but one
must remember who pays the price ultimately; it’s the tourists and
Zambia can price itself out of the market … losing business to our
competitive neighbours. Then we all lose including ‘the workers’ who
have been known, despite gifts every half decade of t-shirts and
bags of maize meal’ to vote out governments. Talk to KK.
At a recent
Hotel and Catering Association AGM held in Siavonga this particular
issue of ‘streamlining the licensing and levy process’ was raised …
and assurances were spouted. Let’s see what happens…
And tell me
about this ‘personal levy’ of K15,000 that is demanded by the Lusaka
City Council for all residents with staff or employees? Excuse me?
Have I got my facts right and if so what planet do you guys come
from? Even better, what are you doing with the money? Street lights
would be nice … won’t even mention the roads.
One good thing
about this bureaucratic mess is that it has inadvertently created a
new job opportunity … companies pay individuals to stand in queues
to collect and hand in paperwork and fees. OK, give credit where
credit is due … a small dent in the unemployment drum. Well bloody
done!
The Lowdown is
inviting comment from businesses regarding this tortuous process as
for many years, we have been trying to get to the bottom of it, but
it is such a quagmire that we ended up more confused than when we
started. Anonymity is, as always, assured.
|
January
2007