Allover Mzansi

Allover Mzansi is a small enterprise that I’ve been trying to help get off the ground. With corporate social investment seed capital and two young men and three young women who have shown promise at a locally based NGO that focuses on orphans (amongst other things) we set up a ‘construction’ business.

Initially the idea was to build the house out of compressed earth blocks made by a Hydraform machine. This is an earth block making machine that uses hydraulic pressure to make an interlocking block that can be stacked without the use of mortar. This seemed the best idea at the time and the intention was to use the local soil and convert this into interlocking blocks - and to get this enterprise to make the blocks. However after a bit of research including a visit to a couple of sites using this method, we decided against it. It worked well in straight lines and the corners seemed messy. It was effectively a rammed earth type product without the inherent beauty of rammed earth and this convinced us to pursue the rammed earth option. From an Allover Mzansi viewpoint, a Hydraform interlocking block would be something completely new and their potential market tends to stick with what they know and the concern was that it would not sell. However this almost signalled the end of their enterprise.

Around that time, another idea came to fruition and this was to make grass paving blocks from Terracrete. These are open concrete paving blocks that interlock and the purpose is to reduce rainwater runoff (as it seeps into the spaces) and allows grass to grow over the areas that don’t get much traffic whilst providing a solid road surface. I had ordered a vibrating table and some moulds and the focus then shifted to getting Allover Mzansi to make these. The theory was simple: for every paving block made, one rand would go to the labour cost and two rand would go to the company. This works if the labour rate is R70 per day and each employee makes 70 blocks per day. So for a crew of three, they would have to make 210 blocks per day. This would appear reasonable as the labour rate is more than the average labourer earns and a production rate of 70 blocks per labourer is easily achievable. With an order of 20,000 blocks from this project, the company would accrue a further R40k which would double their capital. In addition, at the end of the project the company would inherit all the equipment which is a great start to any budding enterprise.

However, as a group of budding entrepreneurs they have an extremely basic sense of commerce. Their main aspiration is to get wheels. Wheels are status, independence and a way to strut your stuff, however wheels somehow have an uncanny ability to empty your bank account fairly rapidly especially when they collide with something solid. And my insistence that this will be the death of the business seems to have silenced this idea for a while.

Allover Mzansi means all over the south or more specifically all over South Africa. The idea is quite grand and even admirable but when they chose the name, they had never mixed a bag of cement let alone laboured one day to taste the sweat of what was to come. Starting at the bottom, learning as you go seemed sensible (nodding heads), but the bottom few rungs of learning never seemed too many steps away from being CEO with wheels (shaking of head).

Well sweat the men have – a little. The women have also sweated. Two out of the three have had babies, one of them having gone AWOL. The men in the meantime have made quite a few blocks but not quite according to plan. Work seems to start when they arrive on a Monday – which could be midday. They live on site to save on the transport costs, so Tuesday through Friday the bed gets cool around eight in the morning. On Friday, work stops at midday so pay can be collected. Also the labour rate was increased to cover transport (which they don’t have) and of course the production rate is around 120 blocks per day for a crew of three. Several mentoring sessions have been had to explain why the funds in the company’s bank account are not accruing according to plan and why they urgently need to up their game. It doesn’t help that whenever they have a mentoring session, everyone gets paid a full day’s wage for a couple of hour’s worth of input. The fact that it is their future at stake seems to escape them. Even overseas volunteers with business degrees and psychology degrees have been giving support and mentoring. The latest input from a volunteer was to help develop a business plan that will kick off post this project. It is very hard not to take charge and make their choices for them, despite this being tempting. This will not work and it is important that their choices are their own. However, there is a glimmer of hope.

The laying of paving began last week after the road surface had been graded and compacted. We had done a test section some time ago, but in the meantime we had been gathering blocks to pave the steep downhill section. It’s important that the Allover team learn a wide range of skills so they were included in the crew to lay the blocks. Work started at seven in the morning and ended at four in the afternoon. Each day they laid around sixty metres of paving and this included covering the paving with soil, creating drainage ditches and generally tidying up as you go. Monday, the Allover team arrived late and were warned. Friday they left early to collect pay. The discussion that followed was frank and to the point. It did not help their case that the rest of the crew was still labouring away. And yesterday, Monday, block making began in earnest and 215 blocks were made. Possibly, just possibly they will make their weekly target which may mean that Friday’s nodding head wasn’t just a nervous twitch.