How much damage is done to our countries and hopes by the never-ending rule of the tenderpreneurs.
How much damage is done to our countries and hopes by the never-ending rule of the tenderpreneurs, those business (mostly) men, with no existing business and no position in any sector, but beautiful connections that see them win our largest tenders?
Working coincidentally close to one in recent years, it was a journey in chaos. His rampantly short attention span and bent for using others as tools meant his ongoing operation was no more than a single retainer.
Bright lawyers got found, and then departed. A few ad hoc freelancers bumped along from high promises to high crises. And, at the core of it all, was just one smart talker with a gift for persuasion and a will to ‘find a way’ to do anything, to fund his multiple homes and multiple wives.
For those who trusted their businesses, public funds, and futures to his ‘find a way’, the price was giving up on knowhow, experience and networks. Typically, when sourcing seeds for biofuels from Ethiopia, his knowledge of the export rules did not exist.
He had no contacts, drawing in as his ‘agent’ the friend of the wife of his occasional freelance marketer. He hit that seed market as an outsider, without knowledge, track record, experience, or familiarity with potential pitfalls: leading, inevitably, to a circus of high drama.
Having seen that journey, from a tenderpreneur who has done more in payroll services than in commodity markets, it has shone a light on Tanzania’s recent failure to deliver African Development Bank-funded hybrid sunflower seeds to its farmers.
There, too, a tenderpreneur won the deal, to supply 700 tonnes of registered seeds, at speed, by October this year. Now, that’s a lot of seeds for a casual, non-industry purchaser to source. But, there was an Indian seed with stockpiles offering slashed prices: albeit as the only hybrid – of 18 registered by India’s Directorate of Oilseeds Development – without information on its yields.
And higher yields was the point of the purchase. Imports of cooking oil contribute to Tanzania’s trade deficit, depressing the shilling. But despite attracting big oil processors, such as Pyxus of the US, local farmers have struggled to deliver enough yield at competitive prices, starving local processors of feedstock. Even Pyxus, which only set up in 2018, and with a big operation, has now closed down and exited.
However, those new seeds, high yield or not, haven’t arrived for the 2023 planting season, which shortly ends. And only one India export licence for just 100 tonnes has ever been traced, applied for on December 2, 2023. On the inside, who knows what chaos? On the outside, no high-yield seeds, no oil processing, no shilling relief.
The writer is a development communication specialist.
