and time is running out.....

Hello,

It has been a while since I have last posted mainly.  I think this has been mainly because I have realised I have only limited time left and feel like there is still a lot of work to do.  My work has still mainly been focused on producing of an organisation budget.  I can say that on  Monday there were yells of happiness when my crazy excel spread sheets come together and produced what you can say resembles something which most accountants would say looks like a budget.  I have been pretty impressed with my excel based model I have produced which has included teaching myself much more superior skills in formula writing then I ever used in my auditing days.  Jo W – you would be impressed!  It contains all those with IF and SUMIF in and is a bit scary to look at.  During my time I have been providing coaching to the accounts clerk, Haxley, in  excel and feel confident that they should be understand how the templates work and will be able to use them in the future.

So I have an organisation budget for Bwafwano.  The only problem is there is a very large deficit!  Eeeeek!  This is mostly to do with the admin / management cost associated with the organisation.  At the moment they only have two funding partners for the 2011/12 confirmed.  Many of their projects funding agreements finished in the past year, and they are proactively still searching new funding partners for these.  At the moment these projects still exist  but staff involved in these are not being paid and you can tell the extent of activity within the organisation has decreased considerably in the past couples of months. The size of the admin and management budget is partly a result of funding of these activities finishing and Bwafwano not being able to cut costs for office rent, security and stationary.   I have really recommended that expenditure and income for their clinic, admin budget and income generating activities needs to be reviewed in robust manner to cut the deficit. Whilst future funding when it is confirmed could hopefully guarantee to these overheads, one of the biggest challenges NGO’s face is that many donors want all funding to go directly into implementation of projects and not an organisations overheads.   It has made me realised the challenges organisation face in agreeing a budget .

Whilst completing this work what came as a bit of a shock to me was the size of admin and management costs on a monthly basis, and made me realise that Bwafwano might face a cash flow crisis in the very near future.  I wrote a very impressive CIPFA style case study memo (all AC people will know what I mean) to the Director and am trying to work on this area for my last couple of days.  I have been slightly disappointed with the reaction of the accountant as I know she understands the situation has does have some very good ideas for reducing expenditure / raising income , I am experiencing problems of commitment.  Other work appears to be more important of all the time even after I have expressed my concerns.  I will have to wait and see but in the meantime Christmas internet shopping might have to start.  Dad – watch out for parcels

Last weekend I had the chance to experience Lusaka nightlife as D’s cousin took me ot.  First stop was river side beer drinking and fish eating at Kafue (about 50km outside Lusaka).  The fish was incredible – straight from the river. All Zambia believe eating the head is the tastes bit, and I have experienced mini wars over who gets this bit. However I remained unconvinced and watching it being eaten still freaks me out a bit.   Next stop was a new Mexican / tapas bar to play pool and then to a rumba club which was playing lots of music from Congo.  I can say my dancing defo did not match up to the element of many of the people there who was experts at shaking their booty.  The whole day was lots of fun. Rachel L – your dancing would have made you feel at home!

I also went shopping – as usual I am now having the panics of if everything will fit in my bag.  Fingers crossed.

This weekend is Victoria Falls and an English inspired meal for the Chikoti household – cannot wait!

Take Care – CCx

P.S Recently I have become quite addicted to a Brazilian soap which is very heavily dubbed into English and have tried nhsima juice which Patricia and Regina swear on to give them energy.  It’s like a very gritty cup of slimmed milk. Yuck!!!!

I also am having lots of difficulties in uploading photos.  Sorry if this makes my blog very boring but will try when I get to S.A or over the weekend.