@Mwalimu, thank you for teaching us through your experiences. I've dealt with BOQs for dams etc but being in an office is way different than being on the ground and can attest to how confusing they are.

Its sad that ones blood brother can do such. I'm curious tho', why is that? Was it you who doesn't know him? Or did you give him a lousy deal such that he had to resort to stealing? Or what? I'm very very curious

The underworld of Construction Part 3

I embarked on having controls in place to safeguard my interest; after all it was plainly obvious that all and sundry were out to milk me dry. I had to look for another hardware guy and this time round I strictly instructed him to only deliver good in the evening at around 6pm in my presence. I’d personally verify the goods.

I also managed to get a new foreman who role was only to supervise the fundis and the KYMs and nothing else. I took charge of negotiating with suppliers and paying them. I realized that this was a big loophole in the initial set up. What the other foreman would do; he’d insist that anyone supplying anything on the site, must part with something small for him. Once a supplier is compromised, it simply means they can just enter into an arrangement to supply air as long as they both gain.

To safeguard against loss of man-hours (fundis and KYMs) I’d demand that the foreman pre-plans the work and for each phase he’d give me the labour estimates to finalize the works. I’d independently confirm whether the estimates made sense. I’d then give him some contract to finalize the works and would obviously throw the control to him. He’d then push the fundis to deliver and maybe make a small saving. That arrangement worked well for me coz I’d relinquish that bit of getting the best out of the workforce.

As regards material pilferage, I took one of the guys on site and made him a mole. He’d be my eye on the ground to ensure no-one steals materials. But again bestowing all this trust on one person never brought a sense of security on my part, you see once bitten twice shy. So I got yet another mole and as long as I could get comparative info from them, it made much sense to me. And by the way, you should never keep a mole for long; after all they easily get compromised, so you keep shuffling them. I’d also make surprise visits just to ensure that am unpredictable.

The other thing which I intentionally did and which worked is to create a perception that am really very tough. The moment these fellows realize you are a weakling, they’ll take advantage of you. But when the fear is instilled in them, then they’ll think twice. If you have to slap someone, take them to the cops or whatever else you can do to instill the fear.

I managed to bring some sanity on the site after the tough lessons. The other very important thing I noted regarding procurement was the fact that same items, same quality, exact products would retail at different prices in different hardwares. You’d be shocked to sometimes even find a price difference of 20-30% in hardwares within the same locality. Some clever hardware guys’ will also price some items cheaply and create the perception that all their goods are fairly priced, only to inflate other goods once you become a repeat customer.

I also realized that well priced and professionally approved alternatives would also create a big saving. Like I discovered some items they call fibre mesh which act as a very good but much cheaper alternative to BRC mesh when casting the slab. You’ll also hear of pre-cast concrete blocks which I have never used which can bring a saving as opposed to the conventional mass concrete.

Finally, investing in knowledge is extremely important. Like being able to interpret a BoQ would give you an idea of the materials estimates as opposed to relying on that jua kali foreman. Get to know what a substructure or superstructure is, even those y12s and y8s should not sound like Greek, and even those impregnated tank bearers and slats should not overwhelm you. There is a certain word I heard from the fundis which was quite funny…makirigishi…of course I had to understand what they were but I’ll leave it to your imaginations.

In the next post I’ll tell you about how that crafty Rongai fellow conned me in the name of selling me timber…and the useless cops who could never help me....

@Marty,please post some more stuff.Your posts have really assisted me.

@Marty.. Where are you? Hope to hear from you before you break for the xmas. I assume you are a blessed guy who has a herd of He Cows,He Goats, He Doppers lined up to slaughter for your folks back in Gichagi

Thank you Marty. Have a merry xmas

Interesting experience marty:
While constructing my rental Units,
a) I hired my sister as the "foreman" in charge of supervising fundis and making purchases.
b) I had another fundi who was the head of the construction team.I paid him slightly more for interpreting the plan and giving material estimates to my sis.
C)My sister had a book in which she would document ALL purchases and other expenses at the end of a construction day. and i mean all purchases and expenses.
d)I work in N.E but would come home weekly to check the books.
e)I would send small amounts to my sisters account in the range of (100k-200k)which she would account for before i released any more funds.
f)During roofing sourcing for timber,plumbing materials,and iron sheets. this i did with my sis.

My sis has so far done two projects for me. they are very good.
in retrospect i dint have any costed BQs only a plan from the architect. I covered the costs/expenses as the project went by.
The only thing i told the lead fundi is not to compromise on quality at any stage!!!

I really didn't want to come to the end of this thread.. So informative and eye opening.. I find that the people who are most generous always seem to have so much more.. There is wealth in giving.

I hope to get into the concrete mixer busines but I don't want to end up like James so I'm goin to test drive the biz using OPM (other people's machine) model before comiting my money.

Thanks a lots.. You're awesome.

whats the relation between marty and this blog.

very educative blog


blog

I do not know @marty personally but Kariuki Waweru is a young fella who cleared campus in 2010!

The underworld of Construction Part 4 …..timber theft

Happy new year everyone. I hope we all had a wonderful festive season. Mwalimu had a great one. Last year was a wonderful year and we learnt a lot. A lot of appreciations from readers and loads of satisfaction from the disseminator of the info. We are looking forward to a great new year and we hope our investment decisions will favour us. Some make new year resolutions, others set financial targets and yet others glide through the year devoid of any plans. But hey, to quote someone within Wazua, every morning the lion and the gazelle wake up and the gazelle must outrun the fastest lion to survive. The lion must also outrun the slowest gazelle to have a meal. Most importantly they all must run..are you running?

Back to matters construction.

This Momanyi guy found us on the site when we were busy chatting with my foreman and introduced himself. He was all smiles and presented to the foreman his quotation for timber. By the way, some of us who are small bodied and sometimes dress anyhow without much thinking are mistaken for KYMs on site. That reminds me someday when my brother in law came to see me on site and this entrepreneurial young man who wanted to enlist the owner of the house for garbage collection service was all over him asking for business and ignoring me…then my brother points at me and advised him that am the owner of the site to his utter shock and subsequent apologies…story for another day.

The quote in comparison to the others was so favourable, I could not believe my eyes; what with prices lower by as much as 3 to 5 shs per foot. I asked the guy why that is the case and he explained that they get their timber from Tanzania at very good prices hence the favourable prices to their customers. I swallowed that hook line and sinker and we agreed that we shall visit him at his yard and see the timber.

The day after we drove to Rongai together with my foreman and all the way to Nkoroi where the yard is located. We were loaded with the cash to do the purchase coz it was meant to be a cash deal. They had very nice timber and we agreed that we shall buy from there. Immediately we agreed, he called some two transport guys and negotiated the transport on our behalf, a nice dude or so I thought. He thereafter called his men into action; around eight of them to measure the timber. We agreed that my foreman will keep any eye on the recording of the measurements while I keep an eye on the actual measurement, tight controls or so we thought. The timber was measured and loaded without any issues and truth be told I never noticed any anomaly. It was then transported to my site and offloaded.

Something crossed my mind, I thought it was wise to verify the delivery. I thus instructed the fundis to measure the timber again. To my utter shock, what I paid for as compared to what I had on the ground had a discrepancy of 40%; in other words it was 40% less. Wait….so what happened. I thought I had a hawk eye when the measuring was being done and I also accompanied one of the delivery trucks to the site while the foreman accompanied the other. Mystery, mystery…conned in broad daylight…but how??

I swung into action, called the guy and told him that he had conned me. Of course he refused..I insisted that I’ll take up the matter to the cops but he sounded unmoved. I drove back to Rongai the morning after and reported to the police station about the ordeal. The cop serving in the OB section just laughed at me and before I finished my story he asked me whether I had bought the timber from a certain yard owned by Kisiis..He confided in me that they have received so many complains about that yard and they have not managed to do anything coz it is hard to prove that the guys actually steal…wait…: ”And why don’t you set a trap to confirm is they steal”, I asked him. Of course they never really bother coz in the past despite arresting the owner severally, the guy always found his way out mysteriously. In my thinking this obvious pointed to something bigger and I therefore so no need of pursuing the matter further with the cops.

I went back home dejected and trying to figure out how to deal with the matter. I even contemplated using unorthodox means to recover the loss, like threatening to go for the owner head with them boys. Painful as it was, I decided to cut my losses as opposed to throwing good money in an attempt to recover the loss. How then did they steal from me??

After utilizing the timber which was far less than was needed on site, I decided to shop around and look for a place to top up. My little shopping around landed me in Kawangware where I met a lady who owned a very well stocked yard. We had a chat with her in her office and I told her about the Rongai incidence and she laughed at me. Before I narrated the entire ordeal, she told that it common place and especially in some yards in Rongai to get sellers who underquote but steal from you. She advised me that it is better to pay the market rates and get value for money as opposed to look for cheap stuff and get conned. Anyway I bought timber from her and after confirming the delivery on site, it was tallying with what I paid for. But while her KYMs were measuring the timber, one opened up and confirmed that he once worked in a yard in Rongai and he had no qualms telling me the various ways they were stealing from unsuspecting customers.

It will shock you but in the next post I’ll tell you how it is done and how to arm yourself just in case some fellows have planned to do it on you. I was conned in broad daylight but some things you never wish they happen even to your worst enemy…. Be warned and advised.