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Over the past few weeks we have seen many news items, locally and internationally, about plastic and the pollution it creates in the local and global environment. Becoming aware of the damages some plastic products cause, especially the use and throw items like plastic bags, governments around the world are putting legislation in place to ban the production and use of a number of plastic items. This is so the case in Rwanda already for some years now and Kenya followed suit eight months ago. Production and use of plastic bags and other use and throw plastic items became illegal and environmental law enforcers follow up on compliance by the private sector and the public. Producing or using any of the banned items will result in harsh punishment, including financial fines and jail sentences. The strong measures seem to be paying off as the environment indeed begins to show signs of less plastic pollution and related damages;
so far so good. However, the introduction of such new legislation from one day to the other for example in Kenya, did not allow business owners and the public much time to adjust to the new situation and find alternatives. As a result, some businesses ended up in deep trouble, while the public had to find new ways to carry home fresh meat or fish without spoiling other grocery items or handbags.
I have observed that new legislation is often introduced overnight without considering the immediate and indirect consequences and without allowing for a grace period for example to allow the market to adjust to the new situation. A legal business may thus end up bankrupt in a matter of days. Sometimes even, new legislation is introduced, entering into force retrospectively, which is hardly fair to those affected by it.
Not that I am aware of the development of legislation banning certain plastic items in Ethiopia, looking at the enormous pollution by plastic bags and bottles in this country, it would not surprise me if similar measures will be taken in this country soon. In other words, companies producing plastic items, better be aware and anticipate a major change in their sector and take pro-active measures to reduce the risks they may face.
From this perspective, I’d like us to look once again into the so called Sigmoid or S-curve, which is sometimes used to represent the seemingly natural way how things develop in business. The curve is sometimes referred to as a learning curve: we learn through trial and error, develop confidence and achieve mastery. It looks like this:

curve
But unless we continue to renew ourselves, performance begins to drop off. In terms of organizational effectiveness, management could study where they are on the curve and see when decline will begin to take place. This is the time management will then try and turn things around.
The solution to the problem is often found in ‘work harder’. But perhaps working harder is not the right answer and instead we may need to work smarter. In fact, we should not wait for the curve to begin sliding down and until crisis occurs before beginning to work on renewal. The secret of constant growth is to start a new Sigmoid Curve before the first one peters out. The figure below shows how this might look.

untitled-1
While we normally concentrate on what we are doing today, the fact that our environment and the conditions we work in are constantly changing, requires us to pay attention not only to improving our present operations but also to designing for the future. In other words, we must have two strategies operating at once. Working on and learning from the two curves simultaneously means that we must allow the past and the future to coexist in the present. Few business owners have the luxury of being able to shut down their business while they transform it, so they are forced to put up with the turbulence and turmoil characteristic of life between the curves. It will take time for the second curve to become established and the first curve to wane. As a consequence, both curves need to coexist in the same time and space. This is like rewiring a house, while leaving the electricity on. There is some danger but if you want electricity throughout the changeover period, you have little choice.
Living between these curves presents leaders with an interesting set of challenges like:
Keeping the first curve alive long enough for the second curve to firmly establish itself.
Develop the perspective and discipline necessary to allow funds to be siphoned away from the first curve to be made available to develop the second curve.
Be able to manage the confusion and tension that results from having both curves operating at the same time.
Now, the road to the future begins by improving that which already exists or making the company as good as it can possibly be at servicing its present customers in the present market. Think about answering the following sets of questions:
The customer:
Who are the present customers and why do they buy from us instead of your competitors?
Are the needs of the customers changing and if so what is driving those changes?
How can we use those changes to our advantage?
The competition:
Who are our present competitors and why do customers choose them over us?
Are the rules of engagement changing and if so what is driving those changes?
How can we use those changes to our advantage?
The company:
If our present customers were to redesign our company, what would they turn it into?
How can we use the latest technological advances to our advantage?
How can we strengthen our relationships with our key customers, suppliers and business partners?
In studying these questions and trying to make sense of the answers we in fact developing a new vision for the future and prepare the company for how it can get there.

Ton Haverkort
From: “Mission Possible” by Ken Blanchard and Terry Waghorn.

Finance and risk in construction

Interview

May 21, 2018

The Ethiopian Association of Civil Engineers (EACE) is organizing a workshop dubbed ‘The role of banks and insurance companies for sustainable development of the construction industry in Ethiopia’ focusing on the relationship between the construction and financial sectors.
Capital talked to Eng. Tesfaye Workineh, President of EACE and Managing Director of United Consulting Engineers Plc (UNICONE) about their upcoming event which will be held next Saturday at the UNECA, and what they expect from the workshop. Excerpts;

Capital: When did the Ethiopian Association of Civil Engineers (EACE) begin and what were the reasons for its founding and its vision?

Eng. TesfayeWorkineh: The Ethiopian Association of Civil Engineers (EACE) was established in 1960 with the vision of becoming a world class professional association that serves civil engineering and related professionals including the general public. Our mission is to promote the advancement of civil engineering through continuous professional development, scientific research and disseminating knowledge and skills. Our organization values professionalism accountability, collaboration, diversity and inclusiveness as well as transparency and social responsibility. We are working to make a contribution to Ethiopia’s efforts in developing the civil engineering profession so that it can attain a global standard of excellence. One way we do this is to cultivate and certify civil engineers.

Capital: What have been the noteworthy milestones in the development of the Ethiopian Association of Civil Engineers (EACE)?

Eng. Tesfaye: We’ve held scientific and technical workshops, symposia, seminars and produced publications such as journals, magazines and newsletters to raise insight in the profession. We have also worked with the government to develop more professional engineers.
To raise awareness, for instance, our association organized a forum for Engineering professionals and held consultation and discussions about problems in the construction industry.

Capital: What is the main purpose of the upcoming workshop?

Eng. Tesfaye: The theme of the workshop as you know is ‘The Role of Banks and Insurance Companies in the Construction Industry for Sustainable Development’.
It will look at the impact of banks and insurance companies in the many factors that go into a construction project. This includes employers, investors, consultants and contractors who develop materials, equipment and human resources. It also involves finance, managing risk and facility management.

The contractor and consultant of a project are responsible for obtaining the financing, which can be quite large. So financial institutions play a huge role in construction, in fact obtaining financing is often one of the most difficult tasks contractors face.
The construction industry is subject to more risk and uncertainty than many other industries. The development of a construction project from inception to completion takes a long time and involves many phases. It brings workers with different skills and interests together and involves the use of large and diverse sets of equipment. All of these complex requirements have to be handled with proper co-ordination to provide a smooth flow of activities. It is necessary to identify and analyze the risks that may appear during the execution of the project. And insurance is one means of transferring risks associated with such projects.
So this workshop will help people improve their knowledge of construction insurance, help people learn about insurance policies, and bank bonds. People will be able to compare and contrast different policies and stakeholders will also come together to discuss how to reduce risk in construction projects.

Capital: What should be the role of banks and insurance firms in supporting the construction sector?

Eng. Tesfaye: No construction project can be successful unless an appropriate financial option is selected and a comprehensive project management process is implemented. Banks and insurance companies help finance equipment, provide loans for the construction, help transfer risk and give guarantee bonds to the project.
Capital: Usually banks and insurance firms face problems with construction companies in regards to financial issues mostly with loan repayments; what are your thoughts about that?
Eng. Tesfaye: In fact it is very difficult to generalize the problem. Construction companies strive to fulfill their obligation but due to unforeseen reasons including misuse, mismanagement or problems in the project planning itself, situations occur where they are unable to fulfill their dues.

Capital: Construction companies are said to be spending the money they take as a loan from banks and projects will fail to be delivered, what is your opinion on this?

Eng. Tesfaye: As I said earlier let us not generalize and think this has happened to most of the companies. But if there is not good planning on the use of advances and loans then yes the projects suffer and fail to be delivered. If parts of loans from banks are diverted to other purposes, projects suffer. The effect will be more devastating if the loan is used for other expenses where the extent of return is not much. As a result, loans will fail to serve the intended purposes and ultimately projects suffer due to cash starvations. In order to avoid or minimize such incident a proper risk assessment and the points I mentioned earlier should be taken into account.

Capital: Insurance firms usually delay claim payments for construction companies, what is your experience?

Eng. Tesfaye: Well, the purpose of this workshop is to create awareness and to assess this question and issues around it and learn more.

Capital: Chinese construction firms are flooding the market, they are on time and quality is also their thing many observers say. However local companies lack the proper knowledge and management skills, how can this issue be addressed?

Eng. Tesfaye: Chinese companies are increasing both in number and the amount of projects they are handling. Likewise, the construction industry is hosting a large number of Chinese and local companies.
Still, when we look at overall performances, many projects in Ethiopia suffer from delays. Quality as well has not excelled as expected. In relative terms, the Chinese companies are in a better position to manage construction projects. Construction by its nature is capital intensive. And the local companies are constrained while the Chinese companies are well financed and thus have more options. This is one reason why quality may not have gone up as expected within the construction industry. The Chinese companies can import machines and spare parts as long as they have foreign accounts whereas the local companies need to wait for a Letter of Credit queue even for their spare parts, and in effect, delays are encountered on projects.
Furthermore, the Chinese companies use technologies to ease construction. On the other hand, implementation of advanced construction management techniques is yet to be exercised with local companies to outweigh competition with the Chinese contractors.

On Ethiopian Oral ‘Puzzled Poetry’: Nudging a Prism Through Literary

Society

May 21, 2018

It is a recent trend that Ethiopians has professionalized ‘poetry’ across the terrain of literary development. To this day, what we forgot often is the rank and file found at the grassroots of Ethiopian peasantry society is a poet for himself. Poetry is highly embedded in Ethiopia whose society is significantly composed from the Agrarian society. In a similar endeavor, it is natural for every household among the pastoralists to use to sing for their herds. Actually, not only animals are sensitized melodies, scientists are telling us flowers also reacted for melody. What surprise us about the Ethiopian peasants for centuries is it seems like the peasant have a real talk with his oxen with a bare poetry. Most of them were ‘kene’ whom didn’t destine for the inks of an author. Rather, much of them compose ‘oral tradition’ and folklore of the society. Although the late preeminent scholar- Donald Levine named by the literary sense as ‘ Wax & Gold’. Notwithstanding, in this piece, we will call it ‘puzzled poetry’ through characterizing the mysterious word inserted within the poems and the listener search for solving the meaning of the puzzle.
Now, one may ask ‘Why didn’t we have the safe voyage between oral Kene (puzzled poetry) and literary poems? It is not few who have a good command for puzzled poetry in its oral form but not kept in written literature. It is not uncommon to dig the oral tradition from the grass root peasant household than a school curriculum, provided that bulky poetry were not kept in written records.
Perhaps, Folklore students dig the popular poems to understand social values along with its dynamics. It is not unusual to observe peasants act to pinch the cattle they reared as if the cattle responded back for their owner’s self-made poems. Customarily, Ethiopian peasants also have poems for his oxen as the pastoralists do for camels. Agriculturalists do have the norm of praising their favorite pet. In an Ethnologist’s sense, Herders don’t raise livestock for economic sense. Eventually, herders built emotional capital to be fixated with their animals whose passion let them to an outright ‘puzzled poetry’. For instance, the farmers don’t have any puzzled poetry out of intimacy, for ‘donkey’ as they are not privileged for intimacy.
There was a legendary Mother Gelanesh who is a Nun in Washira Monastry found in Amhara region. The place is known to admit clergies who like to learn a specialized poetry (a.k.a. Kene) with wax and Gold. Many people argue that the scheme of Kene puzzles the poem through inserting double meaningful word. As Donald Levine exemplified ‘the wax and gold’ tradition, it is a typical way to explain the Ethiopian highland society; whereas it is the social norm than exception which made them ‘masculine’ and ‘non- opinionated’ predispose him for. For Levine, ‘Linguistic ambiguity’ and ‘disguised insult’ was the rule of the day, by way of characterizing the population. .
Once a journalist appeared to mother Gelanesh and asked old nun, as how does she see ‘kene’ in a way of looking an expert opinion. By then, mother Gelanesh were a blind tutor of kene in Washira monastry. And this old woman found the question embarrassing. And She replied him ‘my son, pity for you! No one can see ‘kene’. May be someone can puzzle it’. Inventing a puzzled poem is commonly known as ‘kene tezerefe’. The reply of Mother Gelanesh also holds puzzles as in turn she was telling him back the journalist didn’t come up with smart question. At all, he didn’t have know-how for ‘kene’.
By way of concluding, it is timely to end the divide between the oral ‘puzzled poetry’ and literary poems, through nudging unabated efforts or inscribing the household poetry. That is how one can make sense of Ethiopian tradition of oral poetry to be destined in the writing pad of the minds of the generation. Consequently, the inscription helps towards civilizing the poetry and advancing the society. Against this backdrop, the sorts of HOHE Awards ultimately aspires the safe reception of oral poetry of peasants to be published product. Also, HOHE Awards contends that Secular Kene’s (puzzled poetry) of clergies has to be published than ever before. Good day!

(This article is contributed by HOHE Awards. HOHE Awards started in 2017, is an annual award presented for an author of a distinguished book possessing notable literary merit and critical perspective and illuminating important contemporary issues) By Eyob Asfaw