WOULD YOU BUY A USED LEGAL PROTECTION SCHEME FROM THIS MAN?

The attached pic is of the CEO of Trustco, a Namibian company which in the last couple of years appears to have come from nowhere to take over everything. Now they are going for a public share offering, having gained the approval of the Namibian stock exchange, not too difficult a process.

He says that true wealth derives from a state of mind – funny, I thought that true wealth derives from an ability to con your fellow citizens who are less economically sophisticated and financially aware than yourself.

The company peddles an array of dubious and unproductive products, such as legal protection, (for which a monthly sub of N$70 is levied, for life, with no discernible benefit in return), insurance schemes and obsolete overpriced computer equipment.
What product will be offered next – time-shares in a Namibian ski resort?

Last but definitely not least, there is the ‘Winna Mariba’ competition and ‘777’ scam, for which the advertising is unbelievably bad (see other pic) but which unfortunately will attract the usual gambling addicts. Of course it is absolutely untruthful that ‘millions must be won every week’’, but Trustco gets away with it due to the lack of any checks on misleading advertising in Namibia.

The true statistical odds of winning anything, let alone the millions, can be shown to be negligible, but the process will no doubt be manipulated by giving token prizes at intervals in order to maintain public interest in the scheme. In fact, the ‘competition’ is taking on the aspect of a national lottery, the difference being that where governments run true national lotteries in order to raise funds for charities, the proceeds of Winna Mariba of course are directed purely to the profits of Trustco.

The 777 scam refers to the number which cell owners are ‘invited’ to dial, again in the ever-present Trustco ads, either to enter Winna Mariba or to perform some totally trivial transaction like ‘voting’ for their favourite musician. Each of these 777 calls costs N$4 – again, straight to the profits of Trustco.

Then there is the much-touted and presidentially opened Free Press of Namibia, a supposedly 50-50 initiative between Trustco and the Namibian newspaper, by which the Namibian was supposed to get access for the first time to a state of the art printing machine. After the TV cameras and President departed, what the Namibian ended up with was of course a 2nd-hand 20 year old clunker, not the digital state of the art promised, so that the paper now looks as if produced by a drunken typesetter, then left out for 3 or 4 days in the rain. Anyone who can still read the colour ads, please let me know.
One will note that articles or readers’ letters critical of Trustco are seldom to be seen in the paper, and more and more of the copy seems to consist of Trustco ads, no doubt at very attractive rates. Though vigorously denied, one can foresee the day when the Namibian will be merged with Trustco’s ‘knock and drop’.

Yes, Trustco also has ambitions in the media worldand publishes its own free newspaper called Informanté – a strange name, sounds like cheap jewellery, or am I thinking of diamanté? Funnily enough, it’s well printed and not a bad paper.

The Founding Father could not sink the paper, but maybe Trustco can?

It is a pity the recent Namfisa (the Namibian financial regulatory body) investigation of Trustco collapsed, due to the usual lack of preparation.
Oh, I was going to give my advise on whether people should purchase shares in Trustco. Ran out of time, but maybe in the next posting.

Nam's
bomb
??



I see that

the Founding Father is calling for Namibia to produce its own atom bomb to deal with trouble-makers, no doubt those neo-colonialists. Imagine - Namibia would become the latest world crisis point and a new headache for the US administration. They would be doubly worried - I mean all the North Koreans here are pretending they are building the presidential palace and things, but what if they are really advising on Namibia's nuclear programme?
I think the old gaffer is getting a bit confused - assuming that he knows what an atom bomb is, it does not follow that a country can start making bombs simply because it has some raw uranium deposits. It's like saying that we have a large supply of old aluminium drink cans, so why don't we manufacture our own jet fighters?
This is surprising because apparently the FF enrolled at the University of Namibia to study geology and science and stuff. He doesn't seem to have learned much - maybe he has been bunking lectures. (Or another example of the non-employability of Namibian graduates?). Maybe also the company which granted him a generous study bursary will reconsider.
No, there comes a time when every elderly father should be provided care, a calm environment, supplied with comfortable slippers and a conquer-the-world video game if necessary, but kept away from too much excitement and certainly from contact with the media.

My father used to own

a Borgward, the barely remembered German car, which once was as popular and reliable as Volkswagen and Mercedes, but went bankrupt at the beginning of the 60's.
There is a Borgward street in Windhoek, in Khomasdal, which I had never bothered to drive down until this weekend. Intriguingly, it still looks like a street from the 50's - old houses and bars straddling an overgrown riverbed. Do any of the residents have any idea why their street was so named? Did the planner who laid out the township possess one? There is also an Edsel street, a Dodge street and a Rolls-Royce street, showing how these long dead marques once were the best known names in motoring.

A FORLORN SIGHT

just down the road from us, the former town residence of the List family, the Rockefellers of Namibia; but more than the Rockefeller's, since their company Ohlhaver and List, was involved with every industry from brewing to holiday resorts to fishing. Mr. List died in 2002, and the whole area was blocked by the President's convoy coming to the house to pay their respects. Then Mrs. List went to live with her daughter, and the house now stands empty and for sale. We went around to have a look - we expected a majestic mansion, from which we always averted our eyes in respect when driving past : instead we found a sad little 1950's house, with overgrown grounds, pathetically old-fashioned, useful only for knocking down and turning ino another cluster devopment. Everything on a small scale, except of course for the asking price.

So has the O&L empire declined - now in the hands of the bean-counters - its flagship hotel in Swakopmund has become a fast fish eatery, the historic brwery closed, and the once glorious Midgard a shadow of its former self, with weeds and cracked swimming pools: once hosting legendary sunday buffets, but now offering uneatable food prepared by catering students of the local Polytechnic !

I found the po-faced half-page ad (how much did this cost)




from the Bank of Namibia, last Friday, comprising stern, finger-wagging admonishments on Illegal Trading in Foreign Currency, howlingly funny. Does the Bank realise that most financially sophisticated countries have abolished exchange control years ago, and those which retain it are a few obscure 3rd world territories and those whom names end with 'stan' !

This is for the simple reason that, in this age of electronic transactions and on-line purchases, countries can no more control the movement of curency across their borders than they can control wind blowing across them.

The whole issue (of exchange control) seems to take us back to the age of saddle-bags filled with gold sovereigns. In fact, we are told that these provisions stem from Regulation 2(1) of the Exchange Control Regulations Act of 1961 (!!). Has nobody thought of updating the regulations since then? I mean, the world's financial system has changed a bit since 1961, the height of the apartheid era and the Bretton Woods regime.

Even in South Africa, business people can freely operate bank accounts in US dollars, Euros or whatever, whether locally or off-shore, and I have no doubt that Nambians who are not totally isolated do the same. What about all the Angolans here whose prime currency is the US dollar, and the lodges who 'prefer' payment in Euro. Will they all be arrested? Are they all 'terrorists'? But according to the theory, anyone in Namibia who comes into contact with foreign currency (dirty, nasty, horrible stuff!) must turn it in and wash their hands by the next business day.
So I suggest the BON save money on ridiculous ads, and move into the 21st century.

IT WILL COME AS NO SUR-PRISE

that Professor Geoffrey Kiangi has been 'rumbled' for an attempt to remove 12 computers from the premises of the University of Namibia. Indeed, the only surprise is that

i) the good professor has lasted so long

ii) that he has been caught in what for him must be such a 'small beer' transaction.

'Professor' Kiangi is by origin a Tanzanian national, who since he came to Namibia in the early 90's has enjoyed a mysterious level of influence and popularity with the Namibian government, and has posed as an official authority on all things IT. He had an engineering qualification from a provincial British university, was a lecturer in the old Windhoek Academy, then without any visible computer experience, was appointed head of Computer Science at the newly established University of Namibia. Then, without any apparent IT research activity, he was appointed a full Professor. Since then he was widely suspected of running external courses, consultancies and programmes, using University premises, facilities and equipment, and salting away the proceeds.

So that 12 computers was a very minor item to get involved in, especially with the equally non-qualified head of the Computer Centre. Why didn't he just hire someone to drive the getaway car? No doubt he will manage to convince the cops that the computers were for an urgent downtown 'community project'.

Anyway, what a fantastic example for the country's youth and students.

Has anyone noticed
Our Founding Father's fabulous fence going up around the new State House? It is just as grand as the railings around Buckingham Palace, and much grander than the fence around the White House (see pictures). And what are the gold medallions/logos adorning each section? They seem to bear no resemblance to any Namibian state coat of arms. Maybe they are leftovers from some Nanjing trade fair? Actually the upper logo looks suspiciously like a crown - is a monarchy creeping in by the back door?
You can imagine what the fence must cost (per meter, and it stretches for a couple of kilometres) - what does that imply about the cost of the House?
Of course, this illustrates the law that the grandeur of the presidential palace plus motorcade of any country, and the prosperity of the average citizen of that country, are in inverse proportion to each other.
The golden barrier may be intended to keep the peasants a) out and b) in awe; but so were the walls of Jericho and the great gates of Babylon, and, if I remember the Bible correctly, they didn't work out.

A recent article abo

(picture coutesy The Namibian)
A recent article about the United Nations in Nam.

in the local press (Namibian, 22/12/05, not on-line), and its new resident representative. Included, the news that the UN are spending N$ 70 million (US$ 12 million) on a new UN headquarters in Windhoek. Quite apart from the fact that this ‘headquarters’ has damaged a thickly wooded and environmentally sensitive part of the Klein Windhoek river bed, can one ask why the UN is not spending this money in Dafur or somewhere? Namibia is a (reasonably) settled and grown-up country now, and we should be able to tackle our own problems without being nannied by the UN and its UNDAF (or UN-Daft) fund. The UN Resident Representative says that “by 2010, the UN hopes to have strengthened the country’s response to the HIV-AIDS pandemic”. Well, I doubt whether the endless generously funded conferences and 'workshops' will lessen the AIDS pandemic by one single case. Hot air has not yet been medically proven to be a cure for Aids, nor unfortunately, just on its own, is money. And education programmes? If anyone does not know yet the causes of HIV infection, I don’t think further education is going to help much. Rephrasing, I think the N$70m would have been better spent on ARV's than on a new paper-shuffling palace for the UN from which it can launch more 'education' programmes.
The new UN representative, Mr. Nhongo, says that Namibia is the country with one of the biggest income disparities in the world (right) and that “turning this situation around is a major challenge for the UN” (wrong). I did not know that social and economic re-engineering within a country is a job for the UN – don’t they have anything else to do?
In previous years, the UN has rented offices in Windhoek. Now, according to the Representative, "the money saved on rent (in his new N$70M building) can be put towards development assistance”. Assuming that the rent paid by the UN could not be more than say N$ 50 000 per month, and the finance payments on a ‘home loan’ of N$ 70m, assuming you could get such a thing, would be about N$ 700 000 per month, (even though the government i.e. the namibian taxpayer has chipped in a bit) it makes one tend to agree with those who are sceptical about the UN’s ability to plan its finances.

Views from the beach

at Swakopmund, and the last African sunset of 2005 from the Namibian coast at 8 pm yeserday. Have a good one.