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When we crossed the border into Botswana, once again the South African border post required that we fill out a sheet with all of our electronics listed. We’d run into this as we tried to venture into Lesotho a couple of weeks before, and we’d compiled our list to be ready for our second attempt at the little mountain kingdom which was cancelled by a few ton of rock and mud.
This time, at least, the official was able to give us a reason, albeit still difficult for me to comprehend. If we try to bring our electronics into South Africa, we may be charged a sales tax (VAR 14%) for their value unless we can show we also brought them out of the country, regardless of the fact that the electronics neither came from nor will end in South Africa. Of course, we were and will again be tourists in South Africa, so any VAR we pay is refundable as we leave the country. So, I guess it must be one form or another: either we fill out the form to not pay the tax, or the one as we leave to get the tax back after we’ve paid it.
So, we filled out the form as we drove into Botswana, although my paranoia has haunted me afterward. Having heard stories from a friend in Johannesburg about the organized crime and how the bank tellers will tip off their contacts when a client makes a large cash withdrawal, my mind created a hit list conspiracy. Those who carry around a lot of cameras and computers are marked; license plate (car registration) numbers are passed on. Those who know where the good stuff is share information on to those who would relieve us of it. Paranoid? Certainly. Untrue? I hope I don’t find out the hard way. I’d rather believe it is an inexplicable bureaucratic conundrum than an evil plot.
