Back in Nigeria and the deployment is yet to kick off due to an unforeseen constraint, the Nigerian Customs . The Customs have refused to grant a tax waiver for our 100 XO’s as they are not tax exempt goods (TIA). We tried explaining the laptops were a donation from the OLPC Foundation but they were not willing to budge on the tax.
We are not the only Nigerian team in this quagmire as each team is required to pay the sum of N346,074.05 (three hundred and forty six thousand, seventy four Naira and five Kobo) which is about $2308 for the 100 XO’s. This we didn’t budget for and we have spent the bulk of our budget on the trip to Kigali and Internet connectivity for the school. We have tried many avenues to get the waiver but to no avail. Nia Lewis has gotten in touch with DHL so as to resolve this issue asap. The Niger State Ministry of Science & Technology through its Director of ICT, Engineer Abubakar Y. Salisu has also tried his best to get a waiver for the team but he’s been hitting road blocks in the process.
What has the team been doing so far? Chilling i guess and getting familiar with our individuals XO’s. We also took a trip to the deployment school to talk to the teachers and resolve power issues. I haven’t been able to blog as my old laptop finally packed up and i am stuck with using my XO for most of my cyber activities which ain’t comfortable considering the amount of things i do online.
Hope this customs issue is resolved by Monday so we can start already.
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