Dangers of gentleman’s agreements

fish at.
Boats also enable us to travel faster in big dams. In addition, some fishing spots are not easily accessible on foot. Not having a boat is a barrier to effective fishing especially in bigger dams.
I could not afford the boat on my own neither could Alister. It made economic sense for both of us to pool our resources together and purchase one.
We agreed to use the boat individually or jointly for bass fishing on any other expedition.

After a “gentleman’s agreement”, we jointly purchased the boat and named it Zvatinakirawo (we are okay now) and at the time of purchase we did not anticipate that the boat would give us any problems.
There was no attempt to put anything on paper. The only available documentation at the time was the invoice of the boat and nothing else.
We did not talk about the issues of storage neither were we clear about maintenance.

We were too excited about the acquisition that we did not pay attention to the management and ownership structure of the boat.
We also did not discuss the exit conditions of either partner. In a nutshell, we did not draw a shareholder’s agreement.
Neither of us ever thought that the other part would be selfish. This is a major challenge facing many family businesses. Many deals are done through gentleman’s agreements. Many brothers are at each other’s throats because of a gentleman’s agreement.

Most human beings have a tendency to take advantage of fellow human beings.
Victims of this kind of behaviour are relatives, friends and sometimes fellow parishioners (people who go to the same church).
It is an open secret that people who cheat on you easily are people who are close to you because they are easier to trust. Two years down the road a minor issue of who was supposed to take the boat to the insurance company in Harare for valuation ballooned into a major fallout between Alister and myself.

We started disagreeing on many issues including ownership of the boat.
Alister claimed that he is a 50 percent shareholder and I disputed that fact because from the time of purchase to the days of our disagreements I was responsible for all the repairs, maintenance and insurance of the boat.
I did not mind meeting the expenses during the good times but after the dispute I wanted to be reimbursed 50 percent of all the expenses I had incurred if Alister was to maintain his 50 percent shareholding.

Since the boat was parked at Alister’s house he was also claiming rental of the amount equivalent to the expenses I was claiming, though we had agreed to keep it at his house at no cost.
In the absence of a mutually agreed position, it was difficult to continue operating the boat.
It made sense to sell the boat.
The longer we kept the boat meant the more the rentals that Alister would demand.

Selling the boat without a clear ratio for distribution of proceeds was also another barrier.
Most of the disagreements can be solved if two parties sit down to thrash their differences.
Instead of arranging for a proper meeting where we would iron out our differences we started to avoid each other and communicating through third parties which is a serious flaw in any conflict resolution scenario.

We did not sit down to discuss the appointment of an arbitrator.
Instead, we settled for demonstrating each other’s level of influence which was not value adding.
One of the recommended methods of solving conflicts (should both disagreeing parties fail to reach a consensus) is to appoint an arbitrator.

Both parties must agree on the choice of an arbitrator. Instead of looking for an arbitrator I decided to use my political connections to threaten Alister so that we could end the dispute with terms favourable to me.
Again this is in violation of the principles of negotiations which foster for a win-win situation.

If each party is satisfied with the outcome, there will be no further recurrence of the same issue.
When Alister started receiving all sorts of threats he threw the ball back into my court by using a similar trick.

He called me for a meeting and during that meeting Alister was throwing about names of politicians he was connected to.
He also showed me photos of some politicians who were photographed with him at his wedding.
Later on, I also received visits and phone calls from people purporting to be from Alister’s political camp.

For a long time the dispute dragged on and on with no solution. The politicians’ involvement only served to add more confusion to the whole boat saga.
They actually increased the cost of settling the dispute. I did a background check on two major politicians who were acting as our arbitrators, one was a political scientist and the other one was a historian.
They had no other trappings on their curriculum vitaes besides having been chosen to represent two separate constituencies in the Parliament of Zimbabwe.

I therefore asked myself where these two gentleman best fitted to handle our dispute?
Do we evaluate people on the basis of muscle or relevance?

Again, we had both violated the principles of conflict resolution/negotiation by looking for people who could apply pressure on the other party.
A negotiated settlement dictates that each party’s voice must be heard in a conducive environment.
The environment must enable the parties to air their points of disagreement without fear. An agreement drawn out of fear is not sustainable.

Can politicians be substitutes for shareholder agreements or articles of association or courts of law?
Recently I heard that one of my friends aged 25 years is having a dispute with his ex-girlfriend over a car and a one bed-roomed flat which he “loaned” her during their good days.
The girlfriend is trying to shield her “assets” from my friend using her political connections and my friend is trying to recover his assets using his political patronage. Are social issues supposed to be arbitrated by

politicians?