Money, Money, Money!

When you start construction you need money.

When you are building a College you need about £105,000.

When the money is in the UK bank, then you need to get it transferred physically and into cash that Rwandan's use - the Rwandan Franc RwF.

Millionaires

Today I have been in discussion with Norbert Kalka the supervising architect, about establishing an escrew account - the things I have had to learn for this project.

Norbert has a helpful German bank who can set up this account in a day! Makes me question further what is happening to UK banks.

Now that brought me to the subject of exchange rates, and this is perhaps a plea to some of you money movers out there to give me financial advice to help us get best use of our limited resources. If we are transferring largish(for us) amounts of cash from UK how do we get the best rate.

I asked this question of Norbert and he contacted his nice German bank and they gave me a rate of exchange of 939 RwF to £1. Was this a good deal - the internet aid 942 today.

So to check this out further I went down to the local Access bank. They offer 933.5 and absolutely no negotiation. I asked them if I got a better rate is it worth me coming back - sorry - no!! This was on the assumption I was seeking to exchange £4000 UK into RwF, so there was some incentive for them - well a bit!

There are some money exchange shops behind the Bank of Kigali where we have changed money before. By the way I do not use the Bank of Kigali since they offer at least 30 RwF below these shops. So I tried a couple of these money 'shops' and initially was offered 913 - ridiculous I pronounced - off he went to speak to his boss.

I decided to leave and went up the road. Now there is a very nice young Indian man in a Western Union who started negotiation at 930 and we finally agreed 936.5. Whether that was a good deal I do not know - perhaps David McAdam who is our local expert will let me know.

So I opened my bag, got out the money and the deal was done. You see I need the cash for the builder tomorrow for stage one of construction - excavation and site preparation!

What I did not expect was for it to come in the equivalent of £2 notes - and certainly could not count it  in the shop. So the ton of notes was packed into my bag, and I scarpered up the road to a taximoto and fled to a secure location for counting the money.

Gleeful Garlic!

Roger and I are now millionaires for the night. We are off to meet Kirsty Mcarthur, Norbert and Sabina, and Denise  - for an Italian - what a life - should be a good evening  - do not worry Callum,  Comfort Rwanda is not paying the bill!