Ecua-nogguna, Nogguna, Noggunapayme
So it all started back in January. The organization that I am currently directing works hand in hand with a quasi governmental organization, SayCap, here in Ecuador. We have about 12 volunteers who work at SayCap and usually it is a great deal. Due to its affiliation with the government SayCap has extra funding which allows volunteers to teach students from a middle and lower class background. Awesome. Exactly why we are here.
Furthermore, government affiliation brings with it many exciting things in addition to funding. First you have good old bureaucracy. I mean we think that waiting in a bank line or being on hold is frustrating, but frustrating takes on new meaning when working with SayCap. First of all SayCap is organized kind of like a crappy electronic store. Every had an experience when you go up to one of those funny looking dudes in a blue vest and ask him about cameras, he sends you in search of Clyde, a guy with a blue vest and some kind of earpiece. You search high and low for Clyde and finally find him after ten minutes only to disover that Clyde no longer works in the cameras department and you must find Bianca, a girl with yellow vest and a organge wrist band. Bianca turns out to be the most gigantic pain in the booty that you haver ever met and after a while you just give up on the whole camera thing.
EXACTLY what it's like working with SayCap. Let's take a pop quiz: I have a question about paychecks. Should I call the Finance, Center of Commercial Services, Executive Direction, or Planning department? Finance seems like the obvious choice so you call Finance and guess what? "Sorry sir we aren't actually in charge of that, you have to call Senorita Sanchez in the Planning Department." So I call the Planning Department. Any guess who is on vacation for the next two and half months?
Anyway, one of SayCap's biggest responsibilities is to pay our volunteers every month. A whopping $380 per volunteer. Cannot be too hard right?
Used to actually be pretty easy. Thought they used to promise our volunteers their money during the first week of a month, it always took at least an extra week. Consistency however is a hard thing to find in Ecuador, so we were all OK with the one week delay. Part of the experience.
That's when the Correa bomb hit Ecuador. Old Raffy has actually been up to some crazy stuff lately, and a lot of it has had a direct impact on my job. First, Raffy has completely redone the taxation system in Ecuador. In the past, organizations had to write retentions for various payments. These retentions were basically a way that organizations had to file their taxes with the government. Whenever I wrote a check over $100 I got to withold money that the government and I would basically split. For example, in 2007 if I bought something for 100 dollars, I got to subtract 70% of the tax and 2% of the Sub Total from my total. From there the government and I would split the money that I witheld.
Not that way anymore. Now the only people that get to withold money from their purchases are organizations that carry a special tax status that basically says, "We are rich." This in turn makes all the organizations that "are rich" pay way more money in taxes than organizations that are poor. Thus, under Correa's new law, the poor organizations don't pay many taxes, while the rich pay tons of taxes. And we know what that means. Socia-I mean, Equality baby!
Another thing that Correa did was invent a way that he could put an end to corruption in public organizations. In the past all public organizations, who receive money directly from the government, were in charge of their own bank accounts. Wanna guess what happened? Somehow "gallons of whiskey" got expensed and paid for by the EC government. So Raffy says, "Well fuck that" and just pulls every public organization's bank account of the books. Puts all the money into the hands of the Ecuadorian Minister of Finance. One man controlling ALL of the governments money. We know what the means. Socia-I mean Security baby!
So anyone out there want to take a guess which organizations did not get to have their own bank account as of Jan 2008? SayCap!! Humdinger!
SayCap pays all their volunteers a month after they do their work. Thus a volunteer receives December pay in January, January pay in February, and so on. So I was patiently waiting for December pay around the first week of january, did not see anything pop into volunteers' bank accounts, and consequently called SayCap to give them the old, "Um, when are you people going to start doing your jobs?" The answer I got scared the beejesus out of me.
"Oh well, Correa implimented a new payment system since we don't have our bank account anymore." Thus you will probably not get your payment until next week."
A new payment system on a country wide scale? At the time I was pretty well convinced that a new payment system in Ecuador would go off as hitchless as the time when every computer in the United States of America suddenly switched operating systems without warning. I stayed optimistic, but the worry thermostat suddenly fired up its engine.
So I call back next week. "Yeah it's going to take a while. We have no idea what is going on."
Towelie? Is that you??? Glad to hear you made it down to Ecuador!?!?
And that my friends is when I got to make my newest acquaintance: the beast with clickety clacking keyboards and an old ketchup smell.
"If you want to know what is happening with your volunteers' payment you gotta go to,
THE MINISTRY OF ECONOMICS AND FINANCE"
PS Did Harry Potter ruin the word "ministry" for anyone else? I mean every time I write that word I just think of Cornelius Fudge and people in pointy hats flying around on brooms.
Furthermore, government affiliation brings with it many exciting things in addition to funding. First you have good old bureaucracy. I mean we think that waiting in a bank line or being on hold is frustrating, but frustrating takes on new meaning when working with SayCap. First of all SayCap is organized kind of like a crappy electronic store. Every had an experience when you go up to one of those funny looking dudes in a blue vest and ask him about cameras, he sends you in search of Clyde, a guy with a blue vest and some kind of earpiece. You search high and low for Clyde and finally find him after ten minutes only to disover that Clyde no longer works in the cameras department and you must find Bianca, a girl with yellow vest and a organge wrist band. Bianca turns out to be the most gigantic pain in the booty that you haver ever met and after a while you just give up on the whole camera thing.
EXACTLY what it's like working with SayCap. Let's take a pop quiz: I have a question about paychecks. Should I call the Finance, Center of Commercial Services, Executive Direction, or Planning department? Finance seems like the obvious choice so you call Finance and guess what? "Sorry sir we aren't actually in charge of that, you have to call Senorita Sanchez in the Planning Department." So I call the Planning Department. Any guess who is on vacation for the next two and half months?
Anyway, one of SayCap's biggest responsibilities is to pay our volunteers every month. A whopping $380 per volunteer. Cannot be too hard right?
Used to actually be pretty easy. Thought they used to promise our volunteers their money during the first week of a month, it always took at least an extra week. Consistency however is a hard thing to find in Ecuador, so we were all OK with the one week delay. Part of the experience.
That's when the Correa bomb hit Ecuador. Old Raffy has actually been up to some crazy stuff lately, and a lot of it has had a direct impact on my job. First, Raffy has completely redone the taxation system in Ecuador. In the past, organizations had to write retentions for various payments. These retentions were basically a way that organizations had to file their taxes with the government. Whenever I wrote a check over $100 I got to withold money that the government and I would basically split. For example, in 2007 if I bought something for 100 dollars, I got to subtract 70% of the tax and 2% of the Sub Total from my total. From there the government and I would split the money that I witheld.
Not that way anymore. Now the only people that get to withold money from their purchases are organizations that carry a special tax status that basically says, "We are rich." This in turn makes all the organizations that "are rich" pay way more money in taxes than organizations that are poor. Thus, under Correa's new law, the poor organizations don't pay many taxes, while the rich pay tons of taxes. And we know what that means. Socia-I mean, Equality baby!
Another thing that Correa did was invent a way that he could put an end to corruption in public organizations. In the past all public organizations, who receive money directly from the government, were in charge of their own bank accounts. Wanna guess what happened? Somehow "gallons of whiskey" got expensed and paid for by the EC government. So Raffy says, "Well fuck that" and just pulls every public organization's bank account of the books. Puts all the money into the hands of the Ecuadorian Minister of Finance. One man controlling ALL of the governments money. We know what the means. Socia-I mean Security baby!
So anyone out there want to take a guess which organizations did not get to have their own bank account as of Jan 2008? SayCap!! Humdinger!
SayCap pays all their volunteers a month after they do their work. Thus a volunteer receives December pay in January, January pay in February, and so on. So I was patiently waiting for December pay around the first week of january, did not see anything pop into volunteers' bank accounts, and consequently called SayCap to give them the old, "Um, when are you people going to start doing your jobs?" The answer I got scared the beejesus out of me.
"Oh well, Correa implimented a new payment system since we don't have our bank account anymore." Thus you will probably not get your payment until next week."
A new payment system on a country wide scale? At the time I was pretty well convinced that a new payment system in Ecuador would go off as hitchless as the time when every computer in the United States of America suddenly switched operating systems without warning. I stayed optimistic, but the worry thermostat suddenly fired up its engine.
So I call back next week. "Yeah it's going to take a while. We have no idea what is going on."
Towelie? Is that you??? Glad to hear you made it down to Ecuador!?!?
And that my friends is when I got to make my newest acquaintance: the beast with clickety clacking keyboards and an old ketchup smell.
"If you want to know what is happening with your volunteers' payment you gotta go to,
THE MINISTRY OF ECONOMICS AND FINANCE"
PS Did Harry Potter ruin the word "ministry" for anyone else? I mean every time I write that word I just think of Cornelius Fudge and people in pointy hats flying around on brooms.
posted by ecuadortraveler at 8:36 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home