vegetaleb
Dunno if you noticed but we have the slowest customs in the world?
Not only that they are random in pricing stuff that enter via DHL and couriers but when a business await a container full of laptops,PC parts or mobile phones it take sometimes weeks that the customs accept to pass them without any real excuse.
Some business have the political power to pass them quickly and other have to pay big amount of $ for wasta!
I don't understand how Lebanon can evolve and be better in the business field which was always the pride of our country.
What could push the politics to re-base the Lebanese customs to be more ''modern'' and fast?
Business Lobbies? Geeks lobbies? More ''real'' employees in the customs? a clean police group that monitor customs guys who ask for extra money to pass containers?
Johnaudi
Yet I still love my country.
Maybe this is why everything's so expensive?
Also 99% of the employees here are not educated well (well, speaking about electronics) - they don't even know what is programming.
Hopefully everything gets better in the future.
rolf
My uncle works with expensive and precise printing equipment. He imports accessories, when needed.
He was telling me about customs the other day, and it was somehow funny (he always has funny stories) but also revolting.
He said that there is something called something like the "scientific commitee" (trying to translate from arabic) who check some items.
The "experts" arent that much of experts, surely not in high-precision printing equipment, and if something gets held up there, it is a rush to get there and "deliver" the merchandise (through "bakshish", I understand) before they get their hands on them and damage them, because there are items that will be damaged if they are ever handled in a non-specific way, for example high power lamps that cannot be touched with bare fingers...
He also told me about that time they held up a magnifying glass because it had a scale on the inside of the glass and they thought it was a rifle binocular. That one was rather funny.
vegetaleb
The weapons check is an excuse to maintain the bakhshish system, we all know how easy it's for some Lebanese to get weapons nowadays