IMPORTING a vehicle into Zimbabwe can be a nightmare if not done carefully. I recently had a bad experience while trying to get a van shipped from Tokyo to Beitbridge.

The van was purchased on a Japanese website in August of 2009. The plan was to get it to Zimbabwe by the first week of December. I then contracted a Durban-based company called Perkins Vehicle Carrier Services to receive the van for onward shipment to Beitbridge. This company was recommended to me by the Japanese company that had sold me the vehicle.

As it was the first time that I was doing this, I was not very familiar with the whole process. Perkins then requested me to deposit money into their account together with the Bill of Lading and invoice before the ship carrying my van arrived at Durban port. This, they said, would facilitate quick vehicle clearance through the South African customs and Port Authorities. I sent everything they had asked for before the ship arrived as requested.

I then travelled to South Africa and got there on November 30, 2009, expecting to clear my van through Customs at Beitbridge in the following week. The ship arrived at Durban on December 1 and I got an email from John Kamasho requesting me to send a letter authorising a company called Dedicated Freight to handle customs clearing for me. John is a director for Perkins Car Carriers Services.

This letter was to be addressed to Diamond Shipping Company, which is the company that was in possession of the van after being offloaded from the ship. The letter was drafted by John and sent to me in an email and I was just supposed to copy and paste the letter and send it. I complied and on December 3, I received a call from John instructing me to proceed to Beitbridge to receive my van.

However, when I got to Beitbridge, I received another call from John explaining that there was going to be a two-day delay due to problems beyond his control. I then checked into a hotel in Mussina where I was to spend the two days.

After the two days, I was given another funny explanation and I realised that I was being taken for a ride. I decided to go to Pretoria where I had free accommodation so as to cut on hotel expenses. When I got to Pretoria I sent an email to Maxie Kistan, asking him whether he had actually cleared the van through the South African Customs. Maxie is the Operations Director of Dedicated Freight. This is the company that had been subcontracted by John to do customs clearing in South Africa.

Maxie responded to my email after two days, telling me that he was still in possession of the vehicle and that he was waiting for John to pay him for his services. He further explained to me that there was no need for me to go to Beitbridge in the first place. God knows what was taking place during those two days and what John was up to.

After a few days, I managed to put pressure on John to get him to pay up so that the van could be released from Durban. The van was delivered to Beitbridge on January 1 and I managed to clear it through Customs two days later.

What I later realised is that Perkins as a company does not actually do much other than asking other companies to act on their behalf. They do not have any vehicle carriers and they mostly rely on carriers owned by other companies like Dedicated Freight. They are basically what one would refer to as middle men.

The site does not give their physical address or any names. They also run adverts on other sites. An example of their advert is shown on this link.

Again no names are shown on the site, and there is no office phone. Although this particular advert has a physical address on it, the lack of an office phone makes everything look dubious. They simply operate from cell phones.

From the information shown on this page, it will be almost impossible to trace them if ever they chose to disappear with your money and vehicle. In my case, they actually turned off their website immediately after my van had arrived.

Another advert shown here at least carries a name but again no physical address is given.

If you compare the maps shown on the two adverts you find that they actually refer to two different locations.

They used to run an advert on the Gumtree website but this appears to have been removed. They are quite good at marketing themselves. They claim to offer customs clearing on the Zimbabwe side but when my van got to Beitbridge, they were nowhere to be seen despite having taken a R1,800 payment for doing the job. John simply turned his cell phone off and that’s when I realised what a big mistake I had made.

There are a lot of risks involved in importing a vehicle into Zimbabwe due to the requirement that all vehicles transiting through South Africa be carried by a vehicle carrier – meaning you can’t drive them on South African roads. I am told complete lorries have disappeared while being moved from the port of Durban to Beitbridge and they were never recovered.

From personal experience, it might be a good idea to actually send someone to meet some of these agents before entrusting them with handling your motor vehicle. I am keen to find out other people’s experiences with getting vehicles to Zimbabwe.

Leander Chihuri writes from New Zealand and can be contacted on e-mail leonhamo@yahoo.co.nz