Capetown, South Africa

Highlights: 

 

•     Cape Town waterfront

•     Panama Jacks Restaurant

•     Stellenbosch Winery Tour

•     Cape of Good Hope

•     Penguins on the coast 

 

Waterfront in Cape Town

Cape Town City Hall

Coastline with Table Mountain in the distance

The Cape is not actually the southern tip of Africa and dividing point between the Atlantic (warm water) and Indian (cold water) oceans, it's actually 90 miles east-southeast  at Cape Agulhas.

OIG Team:  Ambassador Bob Barbour, Carl Troy, Arne Baker, Andrea Leopold and Fran Culpepper on excursion in Cape Town

Boulders Penguin Colony.  African penguins are on the verge of extinction are under the protection of the Cape Nature Conservation. 

Visit to Wineries in Stellenbosch South Africa's most famous wine producing region.

Best known for the quality of their Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Bordeaux blends.

 

Windoek, Namibia

Overview:

Namibia, a large and sparsely populated country on Africa's south-west coast, has enjoyed stability since gaining independence in 1990 after a long struggle against rule by South Africa.  Germany took control of the area which it called SouthWest Africa in the late 1800s.  The discovery of diamonds in 1908 prompted an influx of Europeans. South Africa seized it during the First World War and administered it under a League of Nations mandate.  Hage Geingob was voted in as president in the November 2014 elections while serving as prime minister.
Source: BBC Country Profile

American Embassy Windhoek:

The inspection took place from March 8 - 22, 2002, which included a layover on the 7th in Johannesburg from on our flight from Luanda.  I was still a relatively new inspector and had my first encounter with a young Management Officer, Mike Raynor, during a counseling session on treatment of an FSN and his micromanagement style.  I had hoped that he would modify his management style.  Apparently, he changed his ways as Mike went on to be the Africa bureau Executive Officer and Ambassador to Ethiopia.    The FMO/HRO was Bryan Ermantinger who ended up working with me at CGFS/BKK and is now a senior FMO in Ottawa.  A lot of small embassies have combined FMO/HRO positions, which isn't ideal.  Almost always one of the sections ends up not getting as much supervision and oversight as required.    

Findings:

    ·       An ongoing chancery renovation is the embassy's biggest administrative problem, completely                 consuming the time of a facilities maintenance manager who also has regional responsibilities.               These regional responsibilities should be removed.

·       The financial management/human resources officer also has regional duties, but there is no inter-embassy memorandum of understanding to govern them.

·       The regional information management specialist should be converted to a full-time position to serve exclusively in Windhoek.

·       There were weaknesses in cashier controls and time and attendance reporting.  

OIG Team Ambassador Bob Barbour, Team Leader; Carl Troy, Andrea Leopold, Arne Baker, Fran Culpepper.  Arne Baker went on to become the Deputy Assistant Inspector General for Inspections in February 2021.  Carl Troy arranged for our excursions outside of Windhoek on the weekends.

Favorite Memories:

•  Visit to Etosha game park and Kenpinski Mokuti lodge with variety of animals including   Springbok, Impala, Wildebeast, Oryk, Jackals,  Antelope, and Black Rhino

•  Trip to Swaakopmund, Skeleton coast and the Sand dunes at Sossusvlei in the Namib desert

•  Site of filming of Angelina Jolie movie “Beyond Borders”

•  Weekend excursion to Capetown (see separate blog) Post: Edit (blogger.com)

                         Mukuti Lodge, Etosha game park

  

  

 

 Swakopmund (sfä'kôpmənt), municipality (1991   pop. 17,681), W Namibia, on the Atlantic at   mouth of Swakop River. A rail terminus and   seaside resort surrounded by the Namib desert,   the town was originally a port for German South   West Africa, but the harbor silted up and was   supplanted by Walvis Bay after 1915. There is a   strong German architectural influence in the town,   which has many Bavarian-style buildings. There   are salt, garnet, and uranium deposits in the   region. Founded in 1892 by German settlers.

Namib Desert 

Sossuselvi Dunes

                                                                                  

Sea Lions at Skeleton Coast

Kinshasa 2002

Overview:

The recent history of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) has been one of civil war and corruption.   DR Congo is a vast country with immense economic resources and, until recently, has been at the center of what some observers call "Africa's world war", with widespread civilian suffering the result.  The war claimed an up to six million lives, either as a direct result of fighting or because of disease and malnutrition.  The war had an economic as well as a political side. Fighting was fueled by the country's vast mineral wealth, with all sides taking advantage of the anarchy to plunder natural resources.  Some militias fight on in the east, where a large United Nations force is struggling to keep the peace. Opposition leader candidate Félix Tshisekedi became president in January 2019 after protracted political wrangling in the wake of a controversial election the previous month. 

Source: BBC Country Profile

American Embassy Kinshasa:

The inspection took place between February 20 and March 6, 2002.  Bob Barbour replaced Fred Rondon as our Team Leader.  Bob was from Memphis, Tennessee, had served as Ambassador to Suriname and before that Madrid and Paramaribo as DCM.  He had three postings in Saigon and Hue.  He was gentle man and highly intellectual.  We both read detective Maigret crime novels by the French writer Georges Simenon (in French).  Bob passed away in February 2021, at the age of 94 in Vienna, VA.  

There were 51 U.S. direct-hire and 233 Foreign Service Nationals including local guards.  I ran into the issue of having local-hire guards versus contract guards on occasion.  OIG felt that there should be contract with a company to provide guard services as opposed to the embassy HR hiring and servicing guard salaries, benefits and allowances. The Management Officer was Margaret "Meg" Keeton who had a good reputation in AF.  I had an interesting consultation with Meg who complained about the Regional Security Officer (RSO) not attending admin staff meetings.  This was a recent bone of contention ever since the determination was made to have the RSO report to the DCM vice Management Officer in the late 90's.  She also didn't agree that local guards should be local-hire employees but under an umbrella contract.   The FMO was Tom Schmitz, an Admin Generalist on his first FMO tour and enthusiastic to learn.  The embassy for the Republic of the Congo was also housed with embassy Kinshasa because there was no official American presence in the capital Brazzaville.  This situation required regional HR and FMO support of local staff who commuted from Brazzaville   

Findings:

In the area of government-owned real property OIG recommended that the embassy dispose of two underutilized residential properties and a vacant lot. The senior local-hire GSO property supervisor was under investigation for diverting furniture an equipment form the warehouse.  Also, for facilitating the submission of bogus bids for sale of property and then selling to friends at reduced prices.     

Overall management needed to urge the International Cooperative Administrative Support Services (ICASS) council and the working group to work more closely with other agencies and define uniform service standards.

Human Resources was headed by German national, Helga Muller, a long-time well regarded PSC.  Better coordination was needed with HR/OE to review its Foreign Service national benefit plans and continue to monitor the situation with respect to salary surveys. A policy on use of overtime needed to be issued reminding staff that all overtime must be approved in advance.   An alternative hiring mechanism for English language teachers that meets legal requirements needed to be established that protects against potential liability claims.

There should be a memorandum of understanding with Embassy Brazzaville summarizing the regional financial management officer’s and human resource specialist’s responsibilities and establish a schedule of visits when Embassy Brazzaville resumes operations. There was an outstanding fiscal irregularity involving the previous cashier code that needed to be cleared.

Highlights:

• Not much to do in Kinshasa given security concerns but walk around the area of the Grand Hotel and along the Congo river.  We did find a local Lebanese restaurant that we frequented for lunch.   
  
  

Ambassador's residence located along the Congo river where I walked past most every day.