2019 Overview (March 2019 – Feb 2020)
Directors: Johannes Botha Linda Schultz Michael Naude Ryan Botha Johan Schultz
Mission Statement: This is a Non-Profitable Organisation and was formed to provide
Pensioners throughout Zimbabwe with food and basic medicine networking with
relevant bodies and institutions; and in humble gratitude to God Almighty.
The ZPSF was started in 2002 and became an official registered organisation in 2008.
Introduction:
The ZPSF has this year been in existence for 18 years. Over the years we have gone from supporting 1 pensioner to over 1250 pensioners who desperately need help in Zimbabwe. We are currently supporting 26 homes / organisations in Zimbabwe. We also support SOAP (Support Old Age Pensioners) in Bulawayo and Mutare as well as helping to set up similar systems to SOAP in Gweru, Zvishavane, Masvingo, Red Cliff, Kwe Kwe, Chinoyi, Chipinga, Chivhu, Karoi, Kariba, Chegutu and Kadoma to cater for pensioners that are not in old age homes and desperately need support.
History of the ZPSF – From small beginnings:
January 2002 Hannes Botha received an appeal for help from a pensioner in Bulawayo Zimbabwe. The pensioner had no funds and no food. Hannes bought enough food to fill his Ford Meteor car, took a week’s leave and drove the 1000 kilometers to Bulawayo and delivered food to the pensioner. A few months later he went up to Zimbabwe and
supplied the pensioner with food. He was asked to supply a pensioner with food at the Huisvergesig Old Age Home in Gweru. This he did and when he noticed how the other pensioners in the home was staring at him and the box of food he realized that they also needed food. It took Hannes another 8 months to buy enough food to supply 36 pensioners
with a food hamper at this home. The pensioners did not know that they would be receiving food and some of them were so overwhelmed that they cried. This is when Hannes realized that there was a crisis facing the pensioners in Zimbabwe. Their pensioners were fast becoming worthless as inflation was out of control.
Hannes then started the Zimbabwe Pensioner Supporter Fund as he could no longer carry the cost on his own. December 2003 Hannes bought a 4 ton Toyota Dyna truck as he was supplying more than 100 pensioners with food. As donations were received the ZPSF expanded it relief efforts until it was supplying more than 400 pensioners with food, clothing and basic medicine every 3 months.
July 2007 food disappeared from the shelves in the shops and a decision was made to supply the pensioners with a hamper every month. April 2008 the ZPSF was registered as a Section 21A Organization and in July 2008 the ZPSF was donated a second hand 8 ton truck. This made it possible to supply more than 1000 pensioners with a food hamper every month. As the situation in Zimbabwe deteriorated a mobile clinic accompanied our trucks to Zimbabwe
and medicine was supplied to the pensioners. January 2009 the ZPSF purchased a new 9 ton truck which has since been upgraded to carry a 14 ton payload.
March 2009 the ZPSF for the first time sent up 3 trucks carrying 22 tons of food that was distributed to more than 1600 pensioners. It was also in March 2009 that the ZPSF store room moved from Hannes’s house to a warehouse in Malelane.
Management
The fund is monitored and managed by 5 Directors. All major decisions require there be a unanimous vote. General full time management and administration of the Fund remains vested in the Director Hannes Botha, but all principle decisions have been agreed upon and supported by the other four Directors.
Financial
Our current year end for 2019 has just been completed. All expenditure has been approved by the Directors and formal tax receipts have been issued to all South African based donors for tax relief purposes. In addition, all donors receive an email of acknowledgement after every donation made. The ZPSF’s accounts have again been professionally scrutinized and reviewed and the review report states that the accounts are completely accurate and acceptable, and that there are no irregularities. We were given a 100% clean bill of financial health. This is done by 2 outside firms from Johannesburg.
Our biggest Annual expenses are as follows:
Warehouse Rental Malelane – R167770.73 P/A
Vehicle Maintenance – R118180.84 P/A
Insurance & Vehicle Licenses – R84322.80 P/A
Food Purchased – R2564771.50 P/A
Fuel – R293218.40 P/A
Bank charges – R69937.79 P/A
Computer expenses – R18954.55 P/A
Printing and stationery – R3977.38 P/A
New Isuzu Bakkie – R394613.70 (Once off Cash purchase)
Permits and Paperwork –
Cross Border Permits UD 90 R17114.03 (bought 2017 valid 5years)
Carbon Tax & Insurance R 25923.50
Bridge Toll (Coupons) R 21290.00
CVG R 1820.00
Import Permits R 9020.00
Review Fee – R16500.00 P/A
Accounting Fees – R18218.69 P/A
Professional Support
Danie Senekal CA(SA) did the Funds annual financial review for the year ending 29 February 2020.
We are currently using the services of Jolene Wilmse as the registered Accountant / Bookkeeper.
Accounting Policies
General information
Zimbabwe Pensioners Supporter NPC is a non-profit organization.
Summary of significant accounting policies
These annual financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the International Financial Reporting
Standards for Small and Medium-sized Entities issued by the International Accounting Standards Board. The principal
accounting policies applied in the preparation of these financial statements are set out below. These policies have
been consistently applied to all the years presented, unless otherwise stated.
These financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention and are presented in South
African Rands.
2.1 Property, plant and equipment
Items of property, plant and equipment are measured at cost less accumulated depreciation and any accumulated
impairment losses.
Costs include costs incurred initially to acquire or construct an item of property, plant and equipment and costs
incurred subsequently to add to, replace part of, or service it. If a replacement cost is recognized in the carrying
amount of an item of property, plant and equipment, the carrying amount of the replaced part is derecognized.
Depreciation is charged so as to allocate the cost of assets less their residual values over their estimated useful lives,
using the straight-line method. The following rates are used for the depreciation of property, plant and equipment:
Motor vehicles 12.50 – 20.00%
Furniture and fittings 16.67%
Office equipment 10.00 – 20.00%
IT equipment 20.00%
2.2 Impairment of non-current assets
At each balance sheet date, the carrying amounts of tangible and intangible assets and investments in associates are
reviewed to determine whether there is any indication that those assets have suffered an impairment loss. If the fair
value less costs to sell of an asset (or group of assets) is estimated to be less than its carrying amount, the carrying
amount of the asset (or group of assets) is reduced to its fair value less costs to sell. An impairment loss is recognized
immediately in profit or loss.
If an impairment loss subsequently reverses, the carrying amount of the asset (or group of assets) is increased to the
revised estimate of its fair value less costs to sell, but not in excess of the amount that would have been determined
had no impairment loss been recognized for the asset (group of assets) in prior years. A reversal of an impairment
loss is recognized immediately in profit or loss.
Funding Sources
Gross Revenue
Donations received – local 1505704.62
Donations received – foreign 4460422.33
This is achieved through various sources.
- We have numerous regular donors who make their monthly contribution religiously.
- We have a few Companies that continue to support us with monthly contributions although this has decreased over the past year significantly.
- There are a number of donors who do a once off donation or as they have extra funds make a contribution towards the pensioners. This comes from publicity from stories done about the Fund and so on.
- We have over the past 8 years managed to implement PayPal and this aids considerably in receiving funding from overseas, linked to our web page www.zpsf.co.za.
- There are also a few annual donors on who we rely greatly.
- The UK account is also a big help in receiving funds from that side of the world.
7 ) We now also have a USA PayPal link on the following page https://www.facebook.com/ZPSF.USA
- We also now have the direct banking details for an account in Australia via Doug Capper at the Rhodesian Association of Western Australia – admin@rhodesianassociation.com
- We had an amazing December 2019 with us managing to get all the individual boxes adopted for Christmas 2019. This was a huge challenge and all we can say is Wow and a Big THANK YOU.
Thank you to all who helped and supported us throughout the past year. Your support with our Special Easter, Winter and Christmas trips was astounding. To those who supported us locally as well as far and wide we would never have been able to achieve what we have. Whether the support has reached us in Rands, Dollars, Pounds, kindness, prayers or goods it all helps us bring smiles and raises both our and our “Golden Oldies” spirits knowing just how many people out there care. All those little drops help to fill the bucket. Please there are too many of you amazing “lifesavers” to thank individually, just know that each one of you is a hero in our eyes. God Bless!!!
Donations in Kind
Due to constant paperwork changes we can no longer receive any secondhand clothing Donations. This has been in play since September 2013. The powers that be are currently refusing to issue us with a Rebate letter to import this as it is “competing” with their clothing market. A special license is now required. With regards to our importing food we have not been able to import our food supplies under a Letter of Rebate (No Cost Implications) since December 2014 and now have to pay Customs, Import Duties, VAT and Surtax on 90% of the products we take up for our Golden Oldies. For this reason, we have had to stop most donations in kind and request that a monetary donation be made no matter how small. This was a heart sore decision but ZIMRA has left us with little choice.
Updates and Progress for 2019
We once again had a very difficult year in 2019 with relation to the loss of many of our “Golden Oldies” it is one of the hardest parts of what we do, saying goodbye is never easy. We are also still as a fund getting used to not having Attie Botha around. This was a huge blow to the team. Here we would like to thank Dave Austen and Daniel Koekemoer for stepping in as volunteers helping with the driving of the truck and delivery of the food parcels.
Our Bulawayo store room is still up and running. And all boxes for the Bi-Monthly trips are being sorted and packed there. It is safer and easier at this stage to do this and we have a very capable team that assists us there. The bulk stock being held there has and is coming in very handy now. Especially with the stock shortages and rapidly increasing prices and inflation. Our February trip was a huge success and so we kicked off 2020 with a bang. We are currently watching this Covid-19 situation although it has no effect on us currently, but we have to be careful and take our drivers into consideration.
The funds current Isuzu KB 250 bakkie with Reg FVJ443MP that was purchased 12 June 2012 kilometers are standing at 399376km and as such it is a risk for the driver on the long road. It has been deemed to no longer be 100% reliable. The current vehicle will not be traded in but kept for local use. The purchase of a new 2019 Isuzu KB 300 Extended Cab LX at a total cost R394613.70, with the following added features Sliding rear window, Canopy and Towbar was authorized by the directors.
We also now have the direct banking details for an account in Australia via Doug Capper at the Rhodesian Association of Western Australia – admin@rhodesianassociation.com. They ask that donors please include name and ZPSF in the reference. Acknowledgement will be given in their quarterly newsletter. This is just another way to try and make supporting the ZPSF easier for people around the world. Thank you, Doug and the BUNDU team, for your assistance.
Beti-Ann Mclean has officially taken over the UK account and ZPSF Charity from Heather Milner. Heather had been managing the UK account all by herself for many years and had managed to get the Zimbabwe Pensioner Support Fund registered as a Charity in the UK so that donors from that side can receive Gift Aid Certificates. Beti-Ann and Heather are once again looking for people who can be active Trustees in the UK.
Alice Short took on the responsibility of registering a PayPal account in the USA and kept all the paperwork in order so that the USA account is a Registered 501(c) organization and as such can issue Tax-deductible receipts to donors from that side of the world. This account is for USA donors who would like to be issued with a Tax-deductible receipt. The USA PayPal is linked to the following FB page https://www.facebook.com/ZPSF.USA
Donations made to the ZPSF via our web page www.zpsf.co.za can only be issued with Section 18 Certificates which are valid for use in South Africa only.
The route we have had to take from 2016 is to purchase most of the food goods in South Africa. We discovered that a law was passed in November 2014 that no food items (Not even for a Charity) could be imported on a letter of Rebate (Customs & VAT Free) as we had been doing for the past 14 years. This has increased the amount spent on food but it is still cheaper than purchasing the food in Zimbabwe. The stock consisted mostly of the non-perishable goods. Due to the crazy stock shortages and increased costs we have been forced to drastically reduce purchases in Zimbabwe. The costs of everything we put in our Golden Oldies parcels have literally gone through the roof.
Web Page
We would like to thank Judy and her team from Catapult Design (Pty) Ltd for all her help in getting up our new and updated site and keeping it running so smoothly. It is like a breath of fresh air and a lot more user friendly. It also gives access to all our various ways to donate in separate folders for each country.
2020 Year Ahead
The fund will continue to run as it has the past 18 years with every effort being put into Fund Raising and ensuring our “Golden Oldies” receive their desperately needed parcels. With all the new changes in the pipeline we are having to go full out with Fundraising and I should hopefully come up with some unique ideas in order to achieve this.
We have also recently received news that the warehouse we currently use for free at the moment might come up as a paid space and we will then need to look at this as when and if it happens. However, it has been a year since we heard this and so far so good.
Our just over 1250 Golden Oldies are not coping, and we wish we could do more. This whole situation is beyond heart breaking.
The food hampers serve 2 purposes.
1 They supply much needed food to the pensioner.
2 The pensioner then knows that someone cares about them.
While we are always looking at ways to improve and may need to make a few possible changes in procedures as to how our Golden Oldies receive their parcels please be assured that come what may they will receive them.
At this point we again want to thank all our donors, suppliers and supporters for the great work you are doing in enabling us to transport the goods you directly as well as indirectly enable us to hand over to the needy Golden Oldies in Zimbabwe. Without you we simply cannot do it, in fact we are totally reliant on your continued generosity. You people really do not know how great your blessings to us are. YOU ARE STARS!! We however pray our Lord’s richest BLESSINGS for you and your businesses for the goodness you put out there. It is indeed seed for a bountiful harvest.
Hannes Botha
Director & Founder