The Piss Chipper, Internet Cronies, Charlatan

May 2003

11th June 2009
You have singlely (sic) persisted in trying to undermine the chances of Sazani being developed and fortunately you have only been able to convince yourself and a few internet cronies of the value of your actions.
Mine and the other shareholders intentions are all for the best for the hotel, yours are for Mike Harrison. You are the chip pisser, you have pissed on your own chips, everyone else has salt vinegar and ketchup on theirs!

Cathy


24th May 2011
Dear Walter

William J. Fischer owns 50% of the shares in Sazani Beach hotel via a Cayman Island shell.


The first owners of the hotel were the parents of Cathryn AlKanaan. They took on the place when they visited for the wedding of their daughter intending to have a holiday home but were required to make it a hotel, a guest house, by the Zanzibar zoning rules. There are chalets attached to the original house on a very pretty plot which you can see on the internet.

I have never known how Cathryn came to know Fischer, her story that he rocked up when she was visiting and liked the charm is possibly a decent version of the facts. She marked him early as her preferred buyer. Cathryn is good at spotting marks.

He claims a residence in Palo Alto, California. A trust fund baby, his parents, he told me, made their fortune in scrap metal dismantling US battleships after the 1939-45 war. Fischer William, says he “attended university” but that was not his thing. In so much as he would talk of his business and give hints enough for me to get a lead. he had money in time share and new jerry builds in Florida, Costa Rica and perhaps scruffier bits of California than Palo Alto.

Fischer told me he was a philanthropist which is why he came to Africa. Africa needs to be saved. To pursue this he raised capital from, his words, very rich Californian divorcees and widows, who, spending all their time on keeping fit were interested in doing good, in Africa. I suspect, these cohorts were pleased to see their fortunes increasing in those times before the end of 2007.


The schemes that Fischer put money into seemed very mad, to place a side kick, David Gill, an Englishman in Dubai to seek out further funds, more mad. David, who ended up with 5% of the shares in Sazani Beach in lieu of wages told me that Fischer was adolescent, but, hey, David was placed in Dubai, no wages but an all found expense account hired to solicit funds. “It was a dream world.”

Sazani Beach was a mad scheme but one of the least bonkers. Cathryn was, still is, delighted to have this once rich fool ready to buy and put off other buyers. Fischer flush with cash, his widows, took on Cathryn valuation of $400,000, a very big premium, paid out for 55%, the balance given to his gopher, in “lieu of wages.” The money was transferred directly from an account based in California. They were very pleased.

Fischer’s scheme was to make the huts a posh bijou for his rich American cohorts. For that I told him you need more land, for the ancillary services. The land behind and adjacent for the hotel was all bush and Fischer put up another $75k for a hunk of that though the title was vested in an Tanzanian company, Bata Kubwa, set up by me for the purpose, to get around the local ownership rules. That price was a ridiculous premium as well.

As part of the deal Bata Kubwa, my vehicle, got 10% of the shares with a promise of 5% more. I would have preferred cash but there was none and equity was the bad but only other option.

It was Fischer who first told me of the term credit crunch: “Mike have you heard of the credit crunch.” It was the introduction to a rant, dope fed, on how he had seen it coming and got out into cash. I think all wish not fact. To me he is a charlatan, as once I called him to his face. He was very upset which makes me think the description is correct.

I was fired from the hotel by the other shareholders on the 31st December 2009, “the new management was coming 14th January.” I left, annoyed because I wanted to leave with the cash not now useless equity. No new management came, Fischer disappeared from view. Cathy may have contact but since she wrote to the authorities cancelling my resident permit we have never spoken since apart from one email sent on the 11th June 2009

There was a postscript since another hotel chain offered to buy the place. Fischer via Gill agreed but Cathy vetoed the scheme because she wanted to retain a share on behalf of her son.



27th May 2011

Dear Charlotte
I do think Cathryn AlKanaan or her vehicle, Sazani Associates is necessarily more corrupt that anyone else in the business.

It is the aid game, the poverty industry, to make money out of it requires some collusion otherwise the business model does not work and there is not enough for the mortgage and school fees.

Cathyrn is rather good at it. To get by in the game one has to set up a charity- there are various legal means of doing it but a limited guarantee company is the current most popular option. But that is the easy part, you then have to dream up some projects, those projects have to fit the trend, (leadership, youthful entrepreneurs, advocacy have been popular recently), then seek for people to fund the scheme. That is a chore too, proposals have to be written and these days donors who do not look too much must be discovered. In Cathryn’s case, and others I am sure, Comic Relief is the heaviest juiciest low hanging fruit and Cathryn has picked a ripe plum from those fools.

Since you are a charity, doing good, helping the poor, developing Africans you cannot declare a profit. But a profit has to be made otherwise no school fees, no mortgage, no junkets. So of course schemes are necessary. One has tame trustees, mutual favours are reciprocated, well meaning friends with sinecures in universities are a particularly good slice of buttered toast.

In that part of the poverty industry you sell your integrity. That is vulnerability, a sensitivity because deception is a necessity otherwise you are the toast.

Cathryn is not more corrupt than any of the others who ply the trade which she is successful in. My dislike of her is personal not because of how she makes her living. Poverty is a trade and there is a lot of money there if you know where to look. Cathryn has not made herself a millionaire from poverty- I know some who have- but, true, as you ask, I dislike her an awful lot.



Best regards



Mike



3rd June 2011

Mmmmm the days before the bottle got the best of you........

Cx