Parcels sent to Tanzania....and payments required to receive them.

Submitted by Sue-in-USA on 29 December 2006 - 2:04pm

I have a question about parcels sent to Tanzania from America....and the payments that the recepients are being required to pay to receive these parcels containing gifts.

I recently sent two parcels to new friends in Tanzania. One parcel was seized by the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) and they assigned a value much higher than the value of the parcel. My friend (in Dar) had to pay 50,000 TSZ to receive the parcel (25% tax on the value the TRA assigned plus 20% VAT). The 50,000 tax was greater than the true value of the parcel.

Another friend (in the Meru region) just received a parcel of gifts from me for her family that was larger and of greater value, and she had to pay also -- but only 6,000 TSZ -- much less than the true value of the parcel.

Is it common to have to pay to receive parcels in Tanzania? Is it because the parcel is coming from abroad and is going through customs? Do Tanzanian's have to pay to receive letters (in envelopes) that are sent from abroad? Anyone have any insights that they can share about this? The concept of being required to pay to receive a gift in a parcel is new to me.

Afrika

Parcels sent to Tanzania....and payments required to receive the

Submitted by nicoleversleijen on 8 May 2007 - 3:58pm.

Pole sana
Though always frustrating it is quite common...... (Or as many Kenyans use to say: by the time the people at Posta have figured out they cannot use the things which are sent to us, they charge us to get them! Not a strange frustration knowing that among my friends 54% of the parcels never reach them).
Sending parcels from the Netherlands, I managed to partly solve this problem by having an official sticker with stated value of the parcel and explicit mention that it is a present. Then you can always get the complaint that the value in East Africa of goods bought in Europe is higher. In Kenya they count 10% extra of the stated value, so we just mention 10% less on the parcel.....
However nowadays I mostly take them personal!

Better late than never...

Submitted by Sue-in-USA on 8 May 2007 - 4:34pm.

Here's an interesting development related to a parcel delivery in TZ....
I just received word that a large (40 lb.) parcel I sent to TZ almost 7 months ago has arrived without TRA seizure, opening, or required payment -- again proving that we will never be able to understand the rhyme or reason for postal delivery in East Africa. At least I have company in my frustrations. Asante. Having the opportunity to deliver those gifts in person, though, is truely a blessing.

packages to tz

Submitted by jessbnyc on 13 January 2007 - 5:23am.

When i was in dar es salaam i usually had to pick up packages from the main post office (posta mpya) where they claimed to charge 25% tax and 25% VAT, which sounds ridiculous, but they almost always just estimated things at a low value so as to charge about 5,000-7,000 Tsh , which isn't too bad. However sometimes packages that were light (I would say 4 pounds or under) would come directly to me and I wouldn't have to pay. Also I never had to pay for letters.
Hope that helps!

Vifurushi ... na malipo ya ziada...

Submitted by klf on 9 January 2007 - 9:19pm.

What a disappointment. Pole sana!
I am not sure about parcels etc. All I know is when I was there in recent years, any parcel I received was not subject to extra payments. Nor were letters ever "taxed".
I did have a modest amount of money go "astray" in the past few months. I also had booklets of an educational nature disappear. The first was solved by my having to use Western Union (not the cheapest way, of course, but ...) and the second by sending the replacement parcel via the school Headmaster.
When I requested a copy of my daughter's birth certificate last year, my colleague in TZ was asked to pay an astonishing amount of money for the priviliege. My suibsequent letter a propos of this was published in the Arusha Times (English) and though I was promised action this has not to date materialised. The clear implication of the correspondence was that the request for financial compensation for processing my request was pure fabrication on the part of the issuing authority.... to garner unofficial revenue.
I still have not solved that particular issue...