A New Year, Our First Operational Trip, “Know All” Investees

Deka army base in 1973

This is the first blog of 2022. Yes, last week I published it on the first day of the year but it was written in the last week of December. Have things changed? As far as I can see nothing has changed in the world except the date. My car is still broken from last year, the problem did not disappear with the advent of the new year.

“New Year is like a line drawn in the sand, if you step over it your life hopefully changes for the better. This is a fallacy. There are no lines drawn in your life’s path, so hope must be brought about by daily endeavour. Why wait for the next year to come around?” - Peter McSporran

Europe has woken up to what South African scientists told them six weeks ago, the Omicron variant is highly contagious yet much milder than previous variants especially if you are vaccinated. I am not a great fan of the comical figure heading up Westminster but on occasion, he seems to make the right decision, no matter the reason, which sort of offsets his bungling or poor sense in most others. Will he survive? Goodness knows but I think he is more desirable as a leader than Macron who seems to have some serious prejudices which can be seen in his decisions.

“As a person with little knowledge, I am an expert in much. Everyone recognises this except me.” - Peter McSporran

I personally have tried to curtail my prejudices, after all, I do have some English friends, but never seem to be able to curtail them completely. These prejudices have more often than not proven to be ill-advised and destructive being more a poorer reflection on myself than any victim of my petty prejudice against any ‘caste, creed or religion’. Facts are always better than perceptions. That said, do not ignore your first perceptions in any meeting, if necessary review those thoughts from time to time with the facts.

“I would call myself a liberal bigot.” - Peter McSporran

That is what makes me scared of the SNP and its leader. I have no real interest in ever returning to Scotland however I still have some sort of loyalty to the country of my birth. Therefore when I hear openly prejudicial rhetoric to support independence rather than good factual information on the benefits supported with the logic to do so, it makes me despair of my countrymen who support her and her party. I mean countrymen as being of all genders!!

“My prejudices have been more detrimental to my own life rather than to others. Many of my poor decisions in life were brought about due to some prejudice based on a wrong perception, be it ingrained by upbringing or my social environment.” - Peter McSporran

Michele and Scott Von Memerty enjoying our Portuguse neighbours fare

Our son Selby and Maggie abandoned us to take in the New Year with younger friends in Peniche while we entertained two older couples. Scot and Michele Von Memerty, old friends from Zimbabwe, visiting us from Spain along with John and Margaret Tidy, who joined us for dinner and a fun evening mostly recounting stories from the past where we were more often victims than heroes. Of course, many of our friends who are vulnerable due to health, mostly cancer, were not able to enjoy the company of others because of the fear of infection. Hopefully next year we will be able to mix freely.

Later in the week our neighbours, Lucillia Agra and Augusto treated us to good Portuguese hospitality with their wine, cheese and meats, all home produced. Despite language barriers, most of the evening was filled with laughter.

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” - Marcel Proust

First Operational Bush Trip

Before departing for Wankie, we had a weekend off and for us with girlfriends, we invited them down to Bulawayo where Janice and I stayed at the Garvies for the weekend. Little did I know I was about to be dumped shortly thereafter. We then set off to our base in Wankie, a town still very much in mourning following the colliery’s huge explosion which killed 427 men in June of the previous year, 1972.

On arrival at Wankie (Hwange nowadays), we learned that as a new unit, our barracks were not yet built. We, therefore, moved into the 1 Independents (Indept) Company’s camp at Wankie on a temporary basis. 1 Indept were on a stint in the northeast of the country, known as the ‘sharp end’. We shared the base for the first few days with a contingent of South African Police (SAP) personnel who were doing border duty in Rhodesia at that time. They were much older, some in their late forties, and disenchanted that they were doing military type work rather than police work in their local ‘dorps’.

One evening, we all set off to the Wankie Colliery Club where I think “Four Jacks and a Jill” were performing. A very popular South African group, also popular in Rhodesia who often toured our country. At the bar, they introduced me to “Klippies and coke” which is brandy and coke. On returning to the barracks we continued drinking until the sergeant’s mess bar shut at which time I collapsed in one of the troopie barrack rooms. Unbeknown to me, luckily, the SAP contingent decided to unilaterally open the troopies pub where they were found semi-conscious the next morning. Definitely a DB (detention barracks) offence or demotion in the Rhodesian army. For them, just the embarrassment of being chastised in front of some very young TF conscripts. I should mention due to my earlier life in Scotland and the merchant navy, I was one of the oldest men in 4 Indep at twenty-three, other than a few. Of course, all the regulars soldiers were older than us. The smell of brandy would make me feel nauseous for the next five years, boy did I have a headache. I did get an SAP military shirt out of it which I often wore, as it was much lighter than the Rhodesian army heavy cotton ones.

The Batoka Gorge, Zambezi. Rugged country to patrol

After a few days, following the issuing of all our operational stores including ammunition, weapons, tents for company headquarters, compasses, radios, binoculars etc. we set off to an old SAP base at Deka, close to the Zambezi River on the Zambian border. With one platoon remaining there along with the headquarters (HQ) two platoons, including mine, were directed to their own sub-operational areas. The company's area was about 3,000 Km2. Luckily while there were guerilla incursions that occurred regularly they had not taken to openly attacking Rhodesian troops. The guerrillas in Matebeleland north were under Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) command, the military wing of Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU), the Nkomo faction of the freedom fighters. Communist Terrorists (CTs) or ‘Gooks’ to us. We did not realise how lucky we were as the area was later to become a hotspot when the war began in earnest. The war was already escalating much further in the northeast where we spent our time hunting ZANLA (Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army), the military faction of ZANU-PF led by Mugabe. ZAPU was more aligned to Russia while ZANLA to China.

Our platoon found itself in another ex-SAP camp. I think it was Silankwazi but can stand to be corrected. There we were a platoon in a company base whose headquarters consisted of our lieutenant, myself as a sergeant, two drivers and a signaller. It was expected that either the lieutenant or myself would deploy with the troops on patrol which meant a perimeter of some 500 m had to be defended by 5 men when the sections were on patrol. Luckily we were never attacked as at that time the incursions were either for recruiting or reconnaissance purposes. The closest we had to action the first week was an accidental discharge (AD) at an evening stand-too by a rifleman, Milligan, a signwriter from the railways in civilian life. Signwriting in the railways must have had very low entry qualifications as Milligan was in endless trouble, not vindictive, just careless. I had no alternative, but to charge him as it happened in one of the perimeter bunkers narrowly missing two other troopies that were present. Accidental discharge of weapons and sleeping on guard duty along with more serious offences all came with automatic time in DB. A place, unlike civilian prisons, where bullies were allowed to mete out their own sadistic forms of punishment. I cannot remember their names but the Rhodesian army DB at Brady Barracks in Bulawayo was run by a sadistic pair of Afrikaans brothers with more brawn than brain. They were boxers and liked nothing better than taking on youngsters of eighteen or so in the ring along with other harsh disciplinary measures.

Anyway, Milligan went off to DB and came back no better a man, rather much worse than before. I then vowed to try to not send anyone in front of the major on a charge if it could be avoided. I was to see other young men destroyed and yet there were others that came back tougher often with numerous repeat visits there. They were the exception. In truth, I came across a number of Milligan types in the army who should have never been sent operational. They were a danger both to themselves and others. Further, it was extremely hard to get a stick to deploy with one of them included. Over the years we all saw numerous ADs, as our weapons were always cocked when in operation, including in transit, some with devastating tragic consequences.

Rhodesian army bedford 1970s

Our routine in the area at that time was vehicle patrols in our Bedford RLs to show the flag or alternately foot patrols along the banks of the Zambezi, mostly above the gorges. The first was I think purely to show the flag as it achieved little else other than burning lots of fuel. The old British RLs were petrol and when loaded with troops and a trailer, along with sandbags for protection against landmines, they used about 1L of fuel to 3 km at best. Further, due to the bad roads were forever breaking rear centre bolts in their suspension. We carried sacks of the things.

The foot patrols would pick up signs of incursions and of course litter from our own sides previous patrols. We had solid fuel burners in those days, cooking without a fire was a challenge. Open fires were at times used, something in the near future we would never dare to do. Luckily when deploying to the northeast, we were issued with butane burners, a great tool as tea was the most important thing after your weapons in the war. Needless to say, we never came in contact with the enemy on this deployment, probably to our good fortune as we were extremely green.

The one thing I did learn on that trip was that sometimes people in the Tribal Trust Lands would walk nearly 10 km for their daily water. When on patrol asking direction and distances, we soon learned ‘a little way’ meant no such thing.

“Time and distance are different in every man’s interpretation when not supported by recognised measurements.” - Peter McSporran

The Challenges of Investing in African Agriculture Part V - “Know All Investees”

One of the biggest challenges of investing in African Agriculture is the relationship with the investee. Investee’s come in many guises and over the years I believe my, and others biggest failure is not taking enough cognition of the investees character and credentials. Here I am not just talking about integrity but also their attitude in how he or she will relate to the investors, his/her management team, in fact, all staff and other partners. More often than not we are impressed with the concept supported with a good business plan. Enthusiasm and hard work are nearly always present further disguising other faults.

We should of course be happy with the management team or at least the proposed management team. Because the project and business look good in principle, we default both in taking up the investment and in the negotiations in attaining the chance to invest.

The sponsor investee may have created the concept himself or more often than not taken up an opportunity he/she was lucky enough to stumble upon. To complete this feeling of entitlement he/she may then have put some of his/her own cash, overstated sweat equity along with family, friends or even church cash. Whatever, with both the cash and the business concept he/she is marketing, he/she self designate themselves as the CEO or quasi CEO who seems to become an expert in everything to do with the business from finance, agricultural management, livestock or agronomy depending on the project, including processing and finally marketing. Any one of these can create a fatal flaw in the implementation and profitability of the business. When this happens it is always someone else’s fault including the investor who may eventually have to point out the errors of their ways. When this happens the ‘shit’ usually hits the fan. Often such investees or their representatives have the backing of one wealthy benefactor who has little knowledge of the business, rather being contented to say to his/her friends and business acquaintances have a large farming enterprise in Africa.

The problem with “Know all” investees is that their vanity does not allow them to accept fault or blame let alone accept they are the problem. In fact, they will often dismiss managers who challenge their decisions, rather recruiting compliant ‘yes people’ in their place to both support them and ‘carry the can’ when things go wrong.

Once you are invested, it is too late to change, at least easily without cost. The two things these people are good at is self-promotion outside the business and awarding themselves good salaries, be it other people’s money. My advice is if you have any fears about the investee or sponsors, walk away unless you can remedy them prior to investment. As good investments are hard to find in Africa, we often ignore this wise counsel at our peril. Failure can be brought about by partner interference, especially sponsors, and partner fallouts rather than due to the business concept. Even the most benevolent investor will struggle to give someone money when he cannot sit at the same table.

Sunset on Zambezi in Deka area

Disclaimer: Copyright Peter McSporran. The content in this blog represents my personal views and does not reflect corporate entities.