High duty forcing small cross border trader to smuggle

By Mutuna Chanda
A lady cross border trader has said the high duties that countries in the southern African region impose have forced her to either smuggle her merchandize or bribe customs officers just to earn a living.
“The high import duties that governments in the region are imposing on trade are making us bribe customs officers and smuggle goods into neighboring countries”, complains Zimbabwean cross border trader Dzokai Ndaradzi.
Ndaradzi who crosses into Zambia, South Africa and occasionally Botswana says though the systems vary from country to country they are all uniform in high tariff structures which do not cater for poor and small scale traders.
She says, for example, on the Zambian border which she has to cross twice a week from Karoi if she has to go through with two cases of two liters mazoe she distributes the drinks among people on the bus to escape paying duty.
If she has to pay the duty she is charged ZMK 6,000 per bottle which is equivalent to the price at which she initially buys the drinks in her home country, Zimbabwe.
When it comes to her paying duty, she bribes the customs officers for her not to be charged for all the goods she takes into Zambia just to realize a profit.
Ndaradzi does all this to survive. She fends for a family of four; her unemployed husband and three children, two of whom go to school.
When crossing into South Africa Ndaradzi carries art products to Cape Town. Her border encounters are also the same - of bribing customs officers.
“Though South Africa has a better standard in customs procedure the charges are too high for poor traders like me” she said.
“So what happens when crossing into South Africa is if they charge me a certain amount of money for the art products I tell them that I can’t afford and I negotiate for a reduction but I give the customs officer ten rands”, she added.
She bemoaned that governments in the region pretend that the poor traders and the uneducated do not exist.
“Governments pretend as though the poor and uneducated do not live among them, they design the tariff structures for big businesses and yet they apply to even small scale traders”, she complained.
“I want to pay the duty but it should be reasonable for me to make a profit”, she added.
In the case of the mazoe trade from Zimbabwe into Zambia she said if the duties were reduced to between ZMK 1,500 and ZMK 2,000 per two litres of mazoe she would happily pay it because then she would make a profit just to survive.