Non-Tariff Barriers

Complaint

Complaint number

NTB-001-356  

NTB Type

1.14. Lack of coordination between government institutions  

Complaint

Zimbabwe's on line COMESA system has been down since September last year. This has resulted in exporters facing some challenges in producing online COMESA certificates. We did a shipment to Tunisia and had to fill in a new COMESA certificate on a PDF format printed from the computer. This resulted in Tunisian customs rejecting this document claiming that it doesn't have a serial number, therefore its not authentic, even though it was stamped and signed by ZIM customs (ZIMRA). We notified our authorities of the ordeal, and they confirmed that the system was still being rectified. To bail out the situation ZIMRA confirmed that it would contact the Tunisian customs and clarify the prevailing issue currently in Zimbabwe with regards to the on line COMESA certificates. Our market in Tunisia is still facing some clearance problems cause of this incident. We understand that Tunisian customs, wants to resend back the shipment to Zimbabwe at our cost as the shipper. We hereby seek your intervention with regards to this matter. We are dealing with Horticultural fresh and dried produce. Tunisia has proved to be a reliable market, considering the COMESA trade agreements and both countries being member states. We look forward to your earliest response towards in solving our issue. Currently our client is exposed to USD500.00 storage fees per day.  

Progress update note

 

Policy or regulatory NTB

No 

Location

Zimbabwe: Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport (Airport)  

Reporting Country or Region

COMESA  

Country specific trade issue

No  

Date of incident

2026-04-15  

Status

New  

Product Description

Dried Pecan Nuts

Computer-assisted translation

• English
• Arabic
• French
• Portuguese

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Total value

0  

Date reported

2026-05-04 19:27  

Modified

2026-05-04 19:27