Greedy Post Office took shine off kind act of charity

MANY of my friends and family members contribute to worthy causes, some by keeping charity collection tins in their homes, some by sponsoring an orphan and others by knitting warm clothes for unwanted babies. There are many ways in which we can make life just a little easier for those less fortunate than ourselves.

Sometimes, however, charity comes at a very high cost. A friend recently heard about an American organisation that employs disabled and “special needs” people to make T-shirts for a different cause every two weeks.

Half the profits from the sale of these garments goes to the cause and half to the disabled people who make them.

My friend, who lives in Johannesburg, heard about the organisation and decided to order a shirt to help support a young person with a terminal illness.

She paid $30 (R375) for the shirt, but then discovered it would cost her another $32 to have it posted to her in South Africa. It was beginning to look like an expensive garment and there was no way that half that postage would be donated to any good cause.

Then there was our postal workers’ strike which delayed the delivery of the T-shirt by a whole nine months. Just to add insult to injury, when the parcel did finally arrive, the Post Office demanded customs duty of R273.

At current exchange rates that T-shirt probably cost my friend somewhere close to R1 000.

I suppose the original profit on the item came to about $15 and half of this would have gone to the “good cause” – say $7.50 or roughly R90 of our money.

The generous donor says she doesn’t resent having spent the money on a T-shirt, or even on the postage. What she does resent deeply is that R273 in customs duty.

I agree with her that it seems an unreasonable sum to have to pay.

The import duty we are charged seems totally random. I have received parcels from overseas and not had to pay any duty on them and then, at other times, the post office demands an arbitrary sum of R52 or whatever. It’s not as though these are imports for resale. They’re simply token gifts from one family member to another.

Somebody told me it seemed to depend on the wrapping. You seldom have to pay customs duty on anything sent in a padded envelope. But if it’s wrapped in brown paper and string, you pay.

I simply can’t believe any country would have a customs regulation as daft as that.

Last Laugh

A gentleman was trying to smuggle an elephant through customs. He buttered two slices of bread and stuck one on to each of the elephant’s ears. “Anything to declare?” asked the customs officer. “No, nothing at all,” came the reply. The customs officer pointed at the elephant and said: “So what about that then?”

“My good man,” said the traveller, “what I choose to put in my sandwiches has nothing to do with you.”

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E-mail: dbiggs@glolink.co.za