Loans really are available in ZImbabwe

Forget all the rumors that circulate in and around the Diaspora, hakuna mari kuzim(there is not money in Zim), Hakuna ma mortgage in zim( there are no mortgages in Zim). It's all absolutely false...

I recently attended a presentation by Kingdom Bank Zimbabwe, they are doing a series of road shows in and around Zimbabwe, I feel they are basically trying to get Zimbabweans back into trusting the bank to some degree at least. I must say their presentation was quite impressive and the whole team was there from Mr Chankira himself down to the mangers of each facet of the business.
 

Quoting Mr Chanakira," We made a lot of mistakes in our past, we thought we were taking shortcuts by getting into some partnerships, but those relationships turned out to be disastrous, due to differences in business values". I was amazed by his honesty and he came across a very humbled man when he spoke. For me a sign of changing times in ZIM.

To summaries what I learnt from the talk.
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Loans are available in 2 forms[ Long terms loans / Micro-loans)

• The long term loans require one to present all the usual stuff, id business plan collateral etc etc, I am no sure about the loan term, but I think it like 90 days - 12 months or something...(not so long term I guess)
• The micro loans were very interesting - They offer between USD$140 - USD$5000 under the micro loans
• Anyone can apply and guess what they don't even want to see your business plan. They simply come to your place of work, or what your project is, and spend some time with you and see how they feel they can help you with a cash injections, and based on that point (mainly) they can give you anything from the 140 to 5k over a 2 - 6month period.
• So for the typical guy who wants to startup an airtime business selling airtime at the street corner, I quick 140 loan would be a walk in the park. 
• The 140 loan would bring him back about USD11 a day, that's about $USD55 per week and $USD220 per month. Sounds simple ha? Well that's because it is!!!

Overall the general guy out there with a killer business idea, or who is already in business but is failing to get that injection of cash to push him to the next level would probably just stay in that rut due to lack of knowledge about the options he/she has! I feel that generally Zimbaz have the wrong impression about what banks require, or want to see before they can provide finance. One should just give it a try, what's the worst that can happen?!!! They may just say know, but then all you do is understand why they said no, fix the issue and try again....

Introduction to dep league

Blog 29 - 30 jan

Introduction to dep league

For those sitting out there in the Diaspora but want a good insight into the real day to day needs in and around Harare.

Let me introduce to you Dep-league. A mailing list started a few years back. It's a private mailing list that is emailed  To all members. In it you will find all the latest free advs from regular people selling, looking for products & service form cars to cows. I recently picked up 2 database creation contract on there. It's a great resource. The founders say there is over 10,000 active weekly users. Anyways it's worth registering.

http://dipleague.zol.co.zw/archive

Give it a try.

Zimbabwe's Medical Opportunities

Blog 26 - 27 jan

Today was another hectic day, driving up and down, arranging and paying for various test for mum. Yes it's true one actually has to go out of the hospital and go to the scan center, visit the blood labs, go to mars to book your own ambulance to take the patient to all the tests at various locations across the city. 

What keeps me motivated and positive is as I go through the process I am seeing so many opportunities I am very glad to share with you.

Opportunities I have seen centered around medical care and health provision.

Starting from the top.

Medical Aid
All the current players in the medical aid sector have a policy centered around A minimum of  6 months payments before one can even start to benefit from medical aid. So basically you need to have been paying with no interruption for 6 months before you can make any type of claim for medical aid. When zim moved to usd a lot of people simply stopped paying for medical aid due to lack of funds. So I would say at least half of the population don’t have medical aid.

Opportunity - to offer a package where people who need urgent medical care can offer some sort of equity in return for immediate funds. Say cows, a car, land, a generator basically anything tangible that has value of course. The amounts offered will be in relation to the products offered.

Sounds crazy ha? I guess the reality of the situation is that people are dying over minor diseases due to lack of something like 500 usd. Like seriously, you could walk in with your four severed fingers in your hand, bleeding to death and the emergency unit will simply refuse you entry with out cash or medical aid ipapo.( right there )

Private Ambulance Service
I don't know If you will believe this but according to the nurse who called mars on my behalf to book an ambulance mars charge approx. 250usd for  a 1 km journey return. Isn’t that just ridiculous?

Simple opportunity.
So you've completed nursing and have the qualification and are thinking damn  going back home is a no no cause nursing don't pay in zim. Go and get yourself a st  johns ambulance/paramedics qualification via short course or something, buy  yourself an ambulance, import it to zim and start operating a shuttle ambulance  service between hospitals, check up rooms and specialists. You could easily Charge say 75usd and get Away with it. As compared to 250

Setup your own damn private clinic!
As entry levels into almost all industries are virtually picket fence high clever entrepreneurs are  setting up their own emergency clinics and walk in centers. Take for example the brand new St Micheals 24 hour walk-in clinic just opened in Chitungwiza( a satellite city to Harare). With a  doctor onsite 24 hours a day in a highly dense area like Chitungwiza you can only start to  imagine how much money the location generates charging say 10usd per consultation to almost 100 patient every 24 hours. The center trumps it by also running a pharmacy onsite stocking all  the medicines one would need. 

Let your mind be inspired, your many years trainig as a nurse in the Diaspora were not in vain. Yes working as a nurse in Harare pays very little, but working as a nurse who owns and runs her  walking center really does pay the bills. Just by teaming up with. Doctor and maybe a few other  nurses you can be business owners in one if the most lucrative industries in Zimbabwe.

Hospital software, Zimbabwe
Once at the hospital we were confronted with at least 5 different forms all for different  departments, and all wanting the same information. They could have at least used carbon paper or something to duplicate the data. But heck no we had to complete each form one by one. It  took a whole 20 Mins. The only thing I gained from the experience was the fact that I now know  what my mothers birthday is. Lol.

Opportunity
Develop a easy to customise software solution fit to run a  small 40 - 100 patient
hospital and clinics. Amm currently working one one myself

Other observations were

• Blood and specimen testing times. Just taking too long
• Operating an external specialist medical service. Eg. Become a specialist therapist, surgeon, anastathist, dietitian and all the other sectors within the medical fraternity.The handful of doctors here are absolutely milking it. Charging close to 100 usd per 30 - 45 min visit. Crazy!!!!!

I have loads more observations and could go on and on so will stop here!

If you re keen to move back to Zim and enter the health sector I would be more than happy to share some of the many other observations I made. You can simply comment below and or send me an email.

Stressfull Day

Went to bed at 3am trying to get some work done as it seems most of my days are fully loaded with non work related activities. Just been to the office and things were slow this morn. Including our broadband speed which seems to been stuck in Sunday mode, adding another thing to do to my already long list.

Am also getting numerous calls from doctor's secreteries wanting their monies for treatments on mum. It s crazy system out here. Getting calls from doctors, the hospital accounts department, the ward staff all wanting extra money for this and that. am having to juggle and setup meetings with all of them to keep them happy.

So far so good.
Absolutely no time for real work but need to get work done so I can get paid.

Sent from my iPod

Don't jump into zim without a parachute

Blog - Sunday 24th jan 2010
Admitted my mum into hospital for a minor issue that fast escalated to a major issue. operation pending I experienced first hand what it means to be be in a society with no public social care!  We have had to pay a Wad of cash just to get her admitted. The guy at reception made it clear that there would be no admission with no payments . I can only start to imagine what would happen to someone who would arrive with no cash.

Mum is now in a stable condition. As I go to bed all I can think is what a big day have tomorrow. Needing to come up with another 1500 k for hospital bills. As always I'm sure something will work out. 

God always makes a plan.

Breaking Into 2010 - Rather Interesting Week in Zim

Welcome to 2010

Compliments of the season to everyone and a warm welcome to a the new year. I must say my Festive break was a pure bliss. Enjoying my first hot Christmas in years. Well maybe that’s not so true as I was here on holiday in Dec 07. I guess the main difference between then and now was that, in Dec ‘07 the banks had run out of ZIM dollars, and the there was some maximum withdrawal limit or something of that sort set by the reserve bank. But this time around, I celebrated the festive season with Braii(BBQ) after braii!

Damn ndakarowa nyama(I ate loads of meat)! Aside from the eating and chilling, I took some time out to do some catch-up on ideas and projects that I had started end of ‘09. Oh and  had to get back to work and start invoicing my clients, it's school fees craze every Jan in Zim. Some people have been known to sell their cars at silly prices just to raise the necessary fees. hint hint.. when you want  to by a car 4 cheap in Zim, go to ABC Auctions week before school starts and grab yourself a bargain!

Hi and welcome to my 1st entry

Let me give you a little background on the situation. I’ll tell you now, I’m going to tell two lies, see if you can figure out which two are the lies as I outline my story. I’ll reveal the two lies at the end of the entry.

Top secret end of June my wife and I won a little cash on the lottery (just a few grand) and decided to run off to Zim and invest it on businesses and be with family. I mean ‘what would any other sudden lottery winner do’. Anyways we’ve managed to keep it silent until now. To all those who considered me a close mate, I’m sorry that I didn’t let you in on this (a thousand apologies)

So yes, June 2009 my wife who was on maternity leave, after giving birth to our second beautiful young daughter Mimi. I had just finished my long term contract on a fantastic project down south, we had just picked up a little stash(from the win) and we decided enough was enough and we would try moving down to Zim for at least a year and see how we would fair out. Besides everybody had spoken about the unlimited number of opportunities that lay in our economically destroyed country. Opportunities, opportunities that’s all you ever here about in the diaspora. It was time for a test drive and to make those opportunities a reality(God willing).

So for the next 3 months leading up to August (our departure date) we started preparing our move. Some may call it a coincidence, but for me it’s fate, that we were going to be arriving back in Zim exactly 10 years to the day I left back in 1999. So anyway, we decided to pack up all our prized belongings, stuff them in a container and say our goodbyes. Thanks to some typical anti-Zim article in one of those so called ‘pro-human-rights’ international Zim newspapers, warning that expensive looking cars were prime targets for local thieves, and anyone moving to Zim should reconsider bringing in a good car until things have settled down, we returned our much loved kia Sportage to the finance company even though we had almost paid it off(what utter rubbish, as we see much more amazing vehicles in and around Harare every day, and haven’t heard of a single jacking since I got back). Anyway, thanks to that article we managed to convince ourselves that coming back to Zim and starting from scratch would be a great idea and we would then be able to tell the story of how we rose from the ashes with the new Zimbabwe. August came soon and we set off for Africa.

Having taken the long route to the Motherland via Dubai and Joburg with 2 kids under 3 (tell me who else would attempt the same), the anticipation was slowly growing. We left Birmingham airport at 9pm and arrived at Harare International Airport at 9pm the next day. Yes! that was a clear 24 hours on the move. I must testify thought that it was on this long journey that it became more than apparent that we were on a mission set by only The Almighty God alone. We were sent to go back and rebuild our beloved Zimbabwe, and I’m sure my wife will second that.” Why?”, some would ask. Simply because we had the smoothest journey one could have the whole way with good Samaritans stationed at almost all the areas we thought we would face the most difficulty. In addition the thought of being back home, around family seeing my brother, Mother and Father again and my in-laws, knowing that it was not going to be a short 2-3 week break as before, was priceless to say the least. Filled and loaded with emotion and anticipation, we walked into a lowly lit arrival hall and waited for our bags. I think the main electricity supply was down and they were on a generator, nevertheless the excitement was building. We walked right our and faced absolutely no hassle from the highly feared immigration authorities. Seeing the family was an extremely joyous moment combined with high emotion, anxiousness and anticipation of what lay ahead of us in our new Zimbabwe. As I walked out of Harare international airport and took a prolonged deep breath of fresh Zimbabwean air, damn I felt on top of the world. It was great to be finally back in the motherland and no feeling can compare!

For those still trying to figure out the two lies mentioned above.
1: We didn’t win grands in the lottery, just a few quid though our syndicate he he…
2: 9pm UK time to 9pm Zim time is not 24 hours it’s 23(well it was still 1 hour difference when we travelled)

Anyways till the next entry l8rs.