Aug
23
Transport “agents”
If you got on to a bus at the ‘Tank’ in Chelston, Lusaka you would be required to pay K 4000 into town and generally about K 3500 as the minimum to any stop. But thankfully this is Zambia, so what you do is, wait before boarding at a distance from the conductor and show that you want to get on the bus but are not sure and as he approaches you, you begin to negotiate. There’s the “niliche na two pin” – I only have 2000 kwacha, or the “zi ngati pa town” – how much to town, but the pa implies that town is near whereas instead of pa i used ku, that would imply it’s further, usually negotiations go better for big buses, these can carry more people and thus can afford to flex more on the price, but the small buses can too.
The thing to remember is that this not the reality for all Zambians some don’t even know of this part but a lot do. In every day Zambian life there is the element of negotiation and a lot of business concepts in play.
Something you might notice traveling with public transport are the people that stand at bus stops, what they do is act as agents. As a bus stops at a station the conductor talks to these people and they help him load the bus, he leaves them a small amount at the end of this interchange, maybe only a K 1000 it hardly seems worth it. This got me thinking why then do they do it, so one day I decided to calculate the earning potential of these ‘agents’; In an hour he has the potential to transact with almost 20 buses, more or less, if he does and is given the k 1000 from each, he is basically making k 20000 per hour and if he works 8 hours a day, he can make about 160, 000 kwacha a day multiplied by 20 days and he’s now earning K 3, 200, 000 okay maybe less but the idea itself is a powerful one, If you look at the education of some of these agents (so to say) they are not highly educated, and then you compare the money of their more educated counterparts in better jobs, you realize that some of these in informal employment out earn those who far out qualify them in education.
Minimum wage in Zambia is less than k 500, 000 kwacha, this is generally for unskilled labour and some semi skilled labour jobs pay this low, and the starting salary for a degree holder can be as low as 2, 500, 000 kwacha or even less in less regulated areas and in addition to this employees will be made to work abnormal hours, therefore if we calculated it to an hourly paid basis this situation might look even worse. There’s food for thought, does this mean the so called agents in question; can out earn a degree holder? Perhaps!
But of course this is theoretically and there will always be practical issues to limit how much these people actually earn in reality.
The other aspect is that their progression will be limited to their environment, as in they will have less access to other tools to improve their lives but all in all,
From this we learn three important things; firstly there is a lot of money exchanging hands in informal employment.
Secondly there is immense creativity and entrepreneurship on the streets of Zambia. These guys understand very fundamental concepts such as there is strength in numbers, and that things build up, through small quantities they are able to amass significant sums of money.
Thirdly People may not have access to certain privileges but they are not stopped by what they don’t have and instead work with what they have.
