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Published: July 17th 2015
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Motorcycles unloaded from a shipping container: 1
Hours spent during the last 48 hours with Colombian red tape: 19,5
Level of understanding of the Colombian temporary vehicle import process: non-existent
We started the so called temporary vehicle importing process last Friday. Once completed, this process will (finally) enable us to drive our motorcycle through Colombia. The process involves the shipping, port clearing, customs, importing and insuring our motorcycle, only to mention a few of the high level steps involved. Overall, this entire vehicle import procedure gets even more complicated by the very fact that we have to go through the commercial importing process, i.e. we must go through the same hoops as Colombian enterprises that are in the importing business. As far as we can tell, we have to do this because we had to use commercial container shipping services.
Over the last 48 hours we have spent a total of 19,5 hours with various red tape matters... These matters range from port entry authorization, shipping and freighting subcontractor payments, hunting down a missing bill of lading, singing a special container terminal entry insurance for me, customs applications, container movement and storage fees
within the port of Cartagena, applying for and paying for four separate types of inspections (at this point we have honestly lost track of the purpose of each and one of the inspections), temporary vehicle traffic insurance to drive the motorcycle out of the port gates, container unstuffing fees, container unsealing inspection fees, so on and so forth. I could probably fill a few pages enumerating all the red tape steps.
As always, we hired a local handling agency in Cartagenato help us with all of the insanity. Our handing agency
Enlace Caribe and their owner and manager senior Luis Ernesto has been very professional and extremely helpful. Over the past two days, no less than three of senior Ernesto’s employees have been working with our case from morning to late evening. Our main contact at the agency seniora Sonia has driven us around to the various facilities, offices and other places we need to be at to sing authorizations, pay (a lot) of fees, fil in applications, show our passports, present vehicle documents etc. In summary, over the past 48 hours we have spent so much time together with senior Ernesto and Sonia that we have gotten to
know them really well, and have also had a chance to learn one or two things about how to deal with the Colombian authorities and what it takes to import goods into the country (hint: it is extremely complicated). Ernesto and Sonia have been helping small and medium sized companies import goods for over two decades. Occasionally, they help privateers like me and Zoe, who venture to import a vehicle.
Given all the waiting and driving around, we have had plenty of time to discuss with Ernesto and Sonia why things are so ridiculously complicated and why the government authorities are so ingrained in bureaucracy and excessive red tape, and what that means for Colombian business who also have to go through this process as soon as they want to import something to the country. All the discussions have turned out to be an excellent and very practical dare education for Zoe on how countries work (or in this case I guess don’t work), what the role of the government should and should not be, how trade works and what it means for a company to operate in a global economy and truly be competitive. We have had some
very educational discussions, and we all seem to agree that the current system can hardly be thought of as improving the competitiveness of Colombian business, or for that matter attract major international companies who want to establish themselves here. Zoe feels that she has learned a ton, not just from witnessing firsthand the grueling import process and the epic level of red tape, but also from all the principal discussions we have had on the topic of what it takes to make a country and society efficient and competitive.
During the one hour plus that we waited at the customs office, we seized the opportunity to ask seniora Sonia why there was no willingness to streamline the whole import process and thereby make life for many Colombian companies less painful. Her answer was very simple. She told us that, after having done this work for almost 20 years, she had learned that there are way too many vested political and economic interests to want to even think about changing the system. She then gave us an example from one of her recurring clients to illustrate the point.
Every two years a Dutch adventure touring company ships a dozen
SUVs to southern Argentina. Their clients then drive the vehicles to Alaska. In other words, the Dutch drive the PanAmerican highway in the opposite direction to us in SUVs. Three years ago the Dutch company took the ferry boat that used to operate between Cartagena in Colombia and Colon in Panama. For each large SUV, the ferry boat crossing cost $500. Last year when the Dutch company had to cross from Cartagena to Colon, the ferry boat had been suspended – just like this summer. Instead of the ferry boat, the Dutch had to use a container ship and had to go through the some process as we did. Sonia told us that the total cost for using a shipping container came to $12,000 per SUV!!! In others words, the customs, port handling agency, loading and unloading service company, insurance company, shipping company etc., are making $11,500 more that the ferry operator is. The vested stakeholders are simply too profitable to want to change and simplify the system.
By the time we had finished yesterday’s paperwork it was 7pm, and the port authority informed seniora Sonia promptly that the goods release office had closed at 5pm sharp. The good
news is that (we think) we have completed all necessary steps, apart from one minor one, and that we should be able to get the motorcycle released first ting tomorrow Thursday morning. Zoe and I feel that the time has now come to finally start riding southbound, towards Argentina, and we really look forward to getting our motorcycle back.
PS A huge thank you to our handing agency in Cartagena, senior Ernesto and his right-hand senior Sonia, plus the two other employees who have worked on our behalf for two full days. They are true heroes. The
Enlace Caribe employees may also incidentally be some of the most patient people around; as they day in and day out endure more bureaucracy to help their clients than we thought existed in this universe. The
Enlace Caribe employees deserve every penny of their fees, and without them we would simply not be able to continue our trip.
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