Good Filing Monitor

From a series of photos on officialdom around the world:   Sushma Prasad is an assistant clerk at the Cabinet Secretary of the State of Bihar (population 83 million) in the Old Secretariat in the state capital, Patna, in India.   To see the series http://www.guardian.co.uk/share/1547260

Keeping copies, filing, tabulating, systems, recalling, these are some of the underrated skills of the expat life.  Until I hit working life my family model for safekeeping key documents was that of 'putting them somewhere safe'.  In the top right hand drawer of the sideboard in my parents' living room in general.  5000 miles is rather too far for this to continue as my main filing cabinet, but its still my mental default, now supplanted by 'the desk upstairs', 'the floor next to the desk upstairs' and so on.

In your home country it is fairly clear which documents will be needed again, which are vital. The UK, I now discover, has a fairly forgiving attitude to poor filers, a reasonable computer network, a general ability to provide duplicates should this prove essential.  Sadly, this is a poor model for the rest of life. I once temped in the certification office of an elite London college, providing duplicate certificates for global graduates who'd lost them.  Several years of verifying records from the 1970s had been kept in an underground basement which had flooded, - all records lost.  But that was the exception, rather than the rule (Catrin, PhD, 1972).

I remember my outrage when there was a change of head at our children's UK primary school, and the new head, clearly a superlative filer herself, introduced a new incentive scheme for the children, the Governors' Award.  Children providing five of their merit certificates (issued at irregular intervals on gaining 50 merit stars, around twice a year) would qualify for the Governors' Award, a tea-party 'with chocolate' with the governors, and termly picnics and outings. 'Children of good filers' award' I called it sourly, until we disenterred Firstborn's certificates from archaeological layers around the house.  If only I'd known then....

Shifting the goalposts happens regularly here too. Last year there was a three month period where daily, queues encircled an administration block in town. The government had introduced legislation that no one could take public examinations without first providing a birth certificate - often not issued up country.  Hoardes of pre-KCSE students or their parents queued for days to get a birth certificate, 16 or more years after their birth.  A friend's housekeeper sought to track down  her husband who had left her 17 years previously, had never paid anything towards the upkeep of his children, and whose agreement was needed before her son's birth-certificate could be issued.  In vain. In the end she departed again up country bearing gifts for his mother and for the chief of their area, and returned, weary, several days later with the precious certificate, achieved via a back alley route.  One of the country's most respected and prized religious orphanages and vocational training schemes only takes in orphans who have their birth certificate.  It seems very hard when you'd imagine many of those in need of support, - or who had survived a time on the street - might well be missing this (now) key document.

I'm in a longstanding tussle with Kenyan officialdom. Last week I 'dropped in' to my contact person on the fifth floor of a mighty towerblock with no lift to find out the current status of my application, - filed 8 months ago.  'It's been approved!' Hurrah, fanfares. But turning up next morning with all my paperwork to finalise the documentation, I pass via my contact to his colleague four floors down, who deals with the next stage. 'It should be there by now' says my contact. Ominous words in retrospect, since the computer records show in fact it was approved 5 weeks ago, just I still haven't received the letter.  Down I traipse. Help the colleague search various files, daybooks, piles of paper at random over the office. To no avail. My paperwork is lost. 8 months in the waiting, already onto the second application, and the key bit of paper is lost. 

'Can't you proceed without it as you can see the approval on the database?' I say in wheedlng tone?  Come back tomorrow, I may have found it by then, he says, hoping to defer a thorny problem or put me off.  'Someone is back here for the fifth time,' his colleague says disapprovingly in Kiswahili, thinking I don't understand. Oh dear. In for a long wait them.

Thwarted Ambitions

It's not that my life has always been smooth sailing, serene mountain streams down to a tranquil millpond sea. I've had my choppy periods, ups and downs.  I've searched for work in 1984 post-industrial South Wales. I've been unemployed, and made redundant. I've worked as a hotel cleaner, a security guard, on the till of the Marks & Spencer food counter on Christmas Eve and in credit control, as well as in more professional guises. But life in Kenya has presented more challenges to my realistic ambitions than any other period, I reckon.  And maybe that's how life is in Kenya.

For me, the challenges have mainly been around work, work identity and acquistion of work permits. It started with the induction visit, where I was told, very firmly, in 1950s tones, that  'It's very difficult to get a work permit here. Your job will be to support your husband.  We might, over time, be able to get you a nice little admin job here.' D's hand firmly on my knee stopped me from savaging the messenger with a blow by blow account of my professional credentials, and tarnishing our first joint visit to his new office.

Despite the rocky start, for the first year I was mainly content to bide my time, acclimatise, and concentrate on finding my way through the shrubbery. Lots of strategising maybe, scribbling in a hotly held workbook with today's newly acquired smart gel pen, laying plans, but a generally calm, if fallow, period.  But then, in response to advice from the Ministry, I managed to set up a Kenyan registered company, and the fun started in trying to obtain a work permit to go with it.

Firstly you can't get reliable information. Having submitted my first application in compliance with the explanatory email from the Ministry, three months later I then receive word that none of what is written in the email is correct. Fill in another form, apply under another heading, disregard that coherent email, start again. 

It wasn't that I was unrealistic at the outset, I thought. A friend had prepared me for a long wait.  Hired for an urgent timelimited job, after 4 months she was issued with a work permit in the name of her husband. Back to the drawing board. Then her papers got lost. 8 months till she received the (simpler) employee permit.

How much DO you need to invest to demonstrate you have enough capital to get a work permit as a sole trader? One might imagine that maybe £15,000 plus a comprehensive insurance bond would be enough? No, no, £200,000 I was told, and it must be lodged in a Kenyan bank. On the other hand, others say you just need to demonstrate that level of capital, for example, safely in bricks and mortar in a UK house. And still others say $50,000 must be enough.  And I'm not trying to set up a boutique hotel. Not planning to employ anyone. Only supporting people to find and create employment. Could be defined as 'of benefit to the Kenyan economy'. One more potential worker, aiming to create her own employment, willing to pay Kenyan taxes. And supporting jobseekers in a developping country, unlikely to earn megabucks. But further digging just results in further tentative, partial responses.

Then there's the corruption issue, 'graft' as its known here. My bottom line is to seek to do this reputably. Not to undermine the valiant attempts by many Kenyans not to bribe. Not to create a market for the bribeable.  But its easier said than done. The effective way to get a permit is to use a fixer. No standing in queues for days, no seeking to develop a schmoozing register to one's Kiswahili, no trying to understand the impenetrable yourself. But the fixers bribe. Mainly. One stalwart sole trader predecessor, steadfast against bribery, struggled for 3 years before his permit was awarded.  And then, a fortnight ago, 12 staff from the Ministry of Immigration were sacked for corruption. Gossip mills allege that permits had been bought for between £2,000 and £10,000 (on top of the £2,000 official fee).  And word on the street is that issuing of any work permits at all, even those legal to the hilt, has ground to a halt, as the staff in the Ministry are fearful that any decision taken at all will put them next in the firing line.

I understand that things are done differently in different places.  In Germany, where I've also lived and worked, official regulations are complex, but are written down and applied stringently. Woe betide you if you forget or misplace one certified, translated copy, but what you need is clearly laid out in paragraph 3.6.3.1.  In UK, regulations are transparent, there's a recognition that filing systems may sometimes be chaotic, and there's always potential for a conversation with a sensible administrator to cut through problems.  In Belgium things are murkier.  Presentation of the right party card on the table at the appropriate moment can overcome mountains. Unlikely candidates and project proposals may win through, thanks to judicious application of a 'piston', a word in the right ear from a VIP mover and shaker. What I don't yet understand is the officially sanctionned but effective way to go about things here.

I've got professional experience in international, local and regional organisations. I've been nominated for prestigious awards. I speak three world languages fluently, and have worked, more or less competently, using another 3 less widely spoken ones. I have professional qualifications and experience needed and in short supply in the Kenyan labour market. I even have potential clients who want to hire me. I'm not a former axe murderer or a potential arms dealer. You might think that might make a difference. No.

I try to tell myself it isn't personal. And sadly, it isn't.  I interviewed jobseekers, jobholders and employers here last year for my dissertation.  One jobseeker, aged 18, stands out.  She'd done well in her KCSE (A level) exams, gaining the top grades which would mean she could get government funding and a place to study Medicine.  But she was the eldest child in her family, now responsible for helping find the school fees for her younger siblings. Her former school wouldn't release her KCSE certificate to her, to allow her to apply to university, because her family still owed 14,000 KSh (about £120, the whole of a good monthly salary) in unpaid school fees. All the family's spare cash was now going to her younger siblings' fees, and she couldn't see when, if ever, she, or they, would have enough surplus to secure her certificate.  She had found work as a teacher, but without the key certificate, and with her former headteacher unwilling to pick up the phone and speak out on her behalf to explain the situation, lost the job again.  I passed her some cash to start paying off the debt, to demonstrate faith that she would one day reach her goal, but its one small drop in the ocean of impeded jobseekers.

Another interviewee, a mechanic, had been searching for work, in vain, for ten years. Searching for work here means tramping, dressed in borrowed best clothes, knocking on doors, engaging in conversation, bypassing gatekeepers, bribing to gain access, presenting certificates, waiting, returning, pressing.  Each working day for the last ten years, he's been on the road somewhere in Nairobi, asking for work as a mechanic.  In vain.  Discussing his situation and the feedback he'd had over the years, it became clear that his training as a mechanic, gained on a Kenyan government youth employment scheme, actually wasn't at a high enough level to gain him work.  He had heard this - he bitterly repeated the words of the employer who'd explained it to him - but had so much invested in this future, that he'd been unable to roll with the punches and change direction.   Unwilling to seek further training or opt for work in another line.  Head down, just keep on trying.

So I suppose feeling that one has skills, expertise and commitment to offer, but no place to go because of insurmountable, implacable, indecipherable obstacles, is part of the African experience. Someone spoke once of a 'wilful obstinacy' and for me, that seems to sum it up. This time does help me identify more deeply with my interviewees, and with other jobseekers, here and elsewhere.  But if you ask me, its no way to run a country.  No way to make a population feel valued. No way to power an economy to the next level.  Its a cruel waste of talent. And a tragic loss of Kenyan potential. And I'd like to be out there, helping support those impacted by it, rather than sitting drinking coffees in a plush cafe, waiting for school pickup time.

The Right to Work

I once had my palm read on Brighton Pier.  Nothing much that the fortune teller foretold has stuck, - she didn't promise winning the lottery, and I haven't - except that she shook her head and said, 'Working is important to you. You'll always earn a living.'

In my more bitter moments seeking to get a work permit here in Kenya, I've thought of that fortune teller, 'If only you knew.' And it has been a hard, hard exercise in patience and hurdles to overcome. But today, fanfare, I am the proud recipient of a class H (self employed) work permit, stamped into the back of my passport.

The journey started exactly a year ago, when I used a reputable, non-bribe paying company, to set up a sole trader company for me. Time taken, 2 months. Hassle free, they stood in queue, they knew the regulations - and though they were based out, through heavy traffic, at the airport, they would come in to coffee shops and central points for me to sign the paperwork.  My expectations for the next stage became unrealistically high.

Application one submitted in September, with full paperwork. Advised in December that I'd applied for the wrong class. Coincided with a clean sweep approach in the Ministry, where twelve civil servants were sacked for corruption in issuing work permits. The Ministry ground to a halt. No work permits were issued at all, even to upstanding and well-deserving cases, for fear of the issuer being the next to be sacked.

In December the investment rules were changed too. Where before you'd had to prove access, in Kenya, to $50,000, now it was $100,000 dollars.  Back to the drawing board. 

Resubmission of the permit forms in February. A glimpse of light in the clouds in April, when I visited to find out the status of the application, to be told it had been approved a month before!!!  Hoppity skippity over-eager, I rushed down to get it issued, to discover the paperwork had been lost.  Oh dear.

Three weeks later I re-entered the fray. To find the Filing Fairy has been at work. Paperwork has been filed. And there it is, a nondescript little horcrux of a form, with deep hidden powers.

And so today, after a quick trip round the block for more passport photos, another quick trip to get copies of the permit for the aliens card, my first time being fingerprinted so they can distinguish me, there I am.  As the man at the counter said, 'You're independent now.' I now have the right to pay 40% taxation. To submit monthly tax returns. But to work and to get to know Kenya in a different way, no longer on the sidelines.

I wrote many bitter blogs during the gestation process, but thought it better not to post them till everything was settled. In the way that seeing other people's holiday photos is maybe not enthralling, I fear these might not be either. I'll prune, and see what remains.