Landed at 5am, breakfast catch up and then to meetings.
Visited the Ministry of Works Housing and Infrastructure today and met its Permanent secretary and senior officials. We need a “letter of attestation from our “line” ministry. We first asked for this 18 months ago and despite well over 20 visits from our staff we keep being played with and the letter was not forthcoming.
Today we learned the reason they would not give it was that they gave such a letter to someone else and they did not fulfil their obligations. They accepted we had given them everything and they recommended it bit that the Minister would not see us and it’s up to him. They recommended we talk to more senior people in the government who can instruct the Minister to sign it – we shall see!
The flight overnight was tiring so went and had a sleep before meeting the head of the Armed forces to understand their housing needs and priorities. This may also be linked to some funding so an exciting opportunity.
This remains a challenging country yet so many wonderful people. We now have 45 staff on the building site and the momentum is growing. So much to be thankful for.