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Wednesday, October 26, 2011

It remains a mystery to me ...



As I woke up this morning I realized that today is my fifth morning in Dar-es-Salaam. Yes, I have been on the road again since Thursday last week. This is a short trip. Objective: to clear our containers through customs in Tanzania.

I arrived to DAR on Friday night and met with our customs agent on Saturday morning and he brought me up to speed. The commissioner had responded to our request for temporary import stating that we needed to pay 150% on the current taxes... Doing the math that equalled a lot of $$$$$$. So we sent him an appeal letter on Monday requesting temporary import without conditions since we are a church (our host in TZ).

What I have realized is that every nation has it's own set of rules and regulations. I know, I knew this but it still dawned on me again very clearly.

The issue for us this time I think lies in the fact that we shipped our containers from one developing nation to another. The first two times we did this, the containers were shipped from Norway. This might not have anything to do with things but as of now this is my conclusion. The paperwork from Pakistan checked out in Pakistan but not here in Tanzania. So we have had to write attachments and send with the originals.

Then we have two words that governments around the world seem to all love: RED TAPE.


(Wikipedia definition: "Red tape" is a term for excessive regulation or rigid conformity to formal rules that is considered redundant or bureaucratic and hinders or prevents action or decision-making.)

Here is our situation: The Commissioner of Customs is out of town and delegates our issue to a deputy. The deputy then is unavailable all day Tuesday due to pre scheduled meetings, including a board meeting. And since the Commissioner already delegated to one deputy, the others, who were available, can not handle the issue without a new delegation from the Commissioner. So we are at the moment, since yesterday, waiting to hear back from the deputy.

How do governments actually function with all this RED TAPE. It remains a mystery to me...

As I am writing this long over due post, our agent is meeting with the deputy commissioner and hopefully my cell will vibrate next to me any minute with some good news.

I am scheduled to fly home this evening and talking to my agent yesterday afternoon he said that I should be able to but we will make the decision today after he has spoken to the deputy and we know more about the process.

Be back sooner next time ;)

/ Peter
Published: By: The Almqvists - 3:57 AM

 

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