I will take the win!
The factory looked like the house right before aSuper Bowl party, that my parents have hosted for many years... Empty. Clean. Waiting. The floor, not spotless but swept. Normally messy tables were cleared and the corners full of things organized neatly. The air feels like anticipation. That’s what it felt like before the Zambia Revenue Authority came to the factory... or was supposed to come. The past couple of weeks, I’ve been working on applying to the ZRA to obtain a Country of Origin Certificate for our 7 types of soap. I thought it would be easy. Just submit a letter and get the certificate… but no. It involves a letter, invoices from all materials required including factory overhead, customs clearances for anything imported, documentation of production, and a cost analysis for every single soap. We first applied for it in the middle of December. The hardest part of it all was collecting the invoices and clearances because, there has been no system for storing the invoices