Getting Power: A Saga

Last August, UGKAP received a grant which paid for new shea transformation equipment.  This documents the process of getting our shea complex machines wired to the electricity so we can actually use them.

-68.000 (approx. $136) paid on August 30 to increase the capacity of the counter

The hallway where you spend hours stalking the director's office,
trying to find an opportunity to get inside 

-in November they finally came to rewire the counter, and now said that this would not work—that we need an entirely new counter to reach the necessary capacity.

-in November we paid 435.000 (around $870) for the larger counter, the 4 new wires, etc.  They promised to come do the work at the latest in February, and showed us the dimensions of the panel and panel cover that we need to have made, which we did right away.

-At the beginning of March (the work is still not done), they informed us that we overpaid and needed to come get our change—234.396 ($368) was all we had needed to pay--what was this extra $500 for?!  At the same time, we paid for a new panel b/c ours was the wrong size.

-Mid-March they came to install the new wires.  They then informed us that the cover we bought for the counter box was too small (even though we bought the exact one they told us to) and told us what size to make the new one.  They left the wires and never returned to do the work. We were also told to call an electrician to come and disconnect the counter that is already in place and move it so that it can be used for the office space and the complex counter can be separate.  This work was all finished in less than a week.

Attempting to meet with the head of branching.
Check out the awesome wiring job he has done for his own lights...

-Since finishing the work that they told us to do, someone from UGKAP went to the SBEE once or twice every week (at least 9 times), each time being told to bring in new photocopies of the same receipts and that the work will be done in the next 2 days.  The head of the branching department refused to even speak to us when we showed up without our photocopies, even though all he needed to see from them was the address of our office, which we told him in words exactly as it is written on the papers.  This was his indirect way of asking for bribes, which we refused to offer.

-Finally, only after I pulled the foreigner card and showed up with our accountant in mid-April, we got someone to say they would come and do the work.  They do not show up at the time they said they would so I proceeded to call every 30 minutes until they finally come, at COB.

-While doing the work we are informed that they are taking the first counter back with them and the whole office will have to run off of the same counter on a pre-pay system, even though we had earlier signed and agreed to having 2 separated counters: one for the machine complex and one for the office.  They install the new counter but tell us that we have to call an electrician to actually connect the wires.  I start losing my temper with the dude so he finally agrees to just do it.  However, when the work is finished the power for the neighborhood has been cut so we can’t test to see if everything works.

-The next day: naturally, the power still doesn’t work.  We have to call the electrician anyway and get him to fix whatever they did wrong.  One week later, we finally have functioning electricity in the office and for the machines again.  It took almost 8 months, over $550, 10 sets of photocopies of the same receipts, and at least 25 visits to the office to finalize what initially seemed like a simple task.  And this, my friends, one of many reasons why change takes so unbearably long.

Main entrance to the office