Consignment of Sanitary towels stuck at the border.

WOMEN in Zimbabwe anxiously awaiting a shipment of sanitary towels from South Africa must wait a little longer, Thabitha Khumalo, the chairperson of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions’ women’s desk, has said.  The department of customs and excise is demanding hefty duty payments in order to admit the consignment of sanitary towels into the country. The towels were donated following a campaign launched late last year in London by Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) and another one in South Africa. Towels from London are passed on by ACTSA to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) for on-ward transmission to Harare through the ZCTU.

The sanitary towels will remain stuck at the border until duty has been paid to the Zimbabwean government. Duty normally is not imposed on donated goods but for reasons best known to custom officials, money has to be paid first for the consignment to cross into Zimbabwe.

Many believe the customs officials are deliberately throwing the duty hurdle towards the ZCTU since it is viewed as an organisation that is against the government. This also stems from the hostility with which the government of Zimbabwe looks at donations coming from organizations that do not have good relations with it, like COSATU. Relations are far from cordial between COSATU and Harare. This hostility also led to delays of almost two months for donated food and other materials from South African churches last year.

After the launch of the London initiative to raise funds to buy sanitary towels for women in Zimbabwe, the women’s affairs desk of the ZCTU launched a similar campaign in South Africa and managed to get donations of the sanitary towels now stuck at the border.

Khumalo says the response to this campaign was overwhelming in South Africa with people from all walks of life responding to the call to assist Zimbabwean women. Media organizations in the country also helped publicise the campaign resulting in massive donations.
Khumalo says the ZCTU had notified the Zimbabwe government before the launch of the campaign to ensure no red tape would be thrown in the way to stop the smooth transportation of the towels to Zimbabwe.
 
ZCTU deputy Secretary General, Collin Gwiyo, says the workers umbrella body is in the process of sourcing for funds to pay for the duty because the government has also asked them to pay for storage facilities as well at Beitbridge border post. Gwiyo says the sour relations between the government and the ZCTU could be the major setback in this campaign resulting in the unions being asked to pay duty for donated goods. By law, donated goods do not attract duty in Zimbabwe. He said the ZCTU will go out of its way to raise the funds because the sanitary towels are badly needed in Zimbabwe.
The cost of sanitary pads is now past beyond the reach of ordinary women in the country, if at all they are available. The political and economic crisis in the country pushed out the largest producers of sanitary pads, Johnson and Johnson, and other small producers have either left the country or cut production drastically. This resulted in the little that is available on the market becoming to expensive for most mothers who would prefer to put food on the table than buy expensive sanitary towels.