Habib, Thanks for the info. Your posting must have fallen victim to my delete button or something. Well, l am also familiar with all the various shipping documents that accompany international shipments, but as you said, the seller is responsible for these. l guess this is a way to ascertain that all goods are declared, but it also is a sure deterrent to would be importers, myself included.l just hope that this company does not give a monetary value to the goods based on what they think they are worth, as opposed to verifying invoices.l appreciate it. Jabou In a message dated 11/29/99 7:39:20 PM Central Standard Time, [log in to unmask] writes: Yes sister jabou it is true and those fees have nothing to do with customs duty. My cousin told me about it three months ago and I raised the issue on the L -RE economic development to be done in small steps not giant leaps. What the company does is to certify the contents so people cannot commit fraud and lie on the forms or invoices as the what they are shipping. The Gambia customs then will assess their own duty based on this independent report. It is an advance form of double-checking but will make the cost of shipping items much higher . These people must be paid for their time and services- i.e. the $250 plus on each container. It is not a bad idea but it is VERY PREMATURE for us yet. It could have been done in gradual stages. If you check the archives you will find my input . Unfortunately I have deleted all of mine to clean up and get more space. We are moving at a very fast space- literally running before we can walk. All of this is because of a few dishonest people so we all have to pay the price. It is not completely the fault of the Government to be fair. This is my humble opinion . My experiences with the Chamber of commerce exposed me to such reports. Example in the USA to export food the USDA have to issue ,health certificates ,protasanitary cert., vet cert. ICO standards cert but the US company pays those costs not the importer. -just shedding some light here on this new subject Habib Diab Ghanim >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------