Sending Personnal Belonging to Cape Verde Islands

You can find professional movers online. Everything can be organised for you, however there can be a hold up in Cape Verde at the port with Customs even if your paperwork is in order and your lawyer or despatcher has done everything correctly. There is no definitive time scale to getting your goods out of customs, it could be sooner rather than later and visa versa. There are additional costs involved at the port for daily storage and with Customs. The quicker you get your items out of Customs then the cheaper it will be!

The following information was supplied by one investor who had his personal effects shipped over from the UK to Sal in 2016.

Import of personal effects to Cape Verde by container ship

Once we had made the decision to move our own effects to our apartment on Sal Island (Vila Verde) as opposed to going down the route of purchasing a furniture pack on the island, we set about an expansive internet search for companies willing and able to help us out.

What we basically found was that there were companies willing to provide:

a)Packing and transportation from home in Scotland to the port on the south coast of England.

b)Packing and transportation from home to UK port, transfer to container and shipment to Cape Verde.

c)Packing, transfer, shipping from home to apartment on Vila Verde including all paperwork at port of entry with representatives both in the UK and local to Cape Verde dealing with everything on our behalf.

We decided that the services provided in category “a)” were not adequate for what we required.

We decided to get a quote from a company in category “b)” as they sent out a tick checklist itemising each room and effects that these rooms might have in them just to get an idea of volume of our effects and furniture. The name of this company was PSS Removals (www.PSSRemovals.com). The quote itself we decided was quite reasonable (approx. £10/sq ft) but left us with further costs for transport and support once in Cape Verde. Whilst searching for someone to transport and deal with all the paperwork in Cape Verde we came across a company that falls into category “c)”.

The company is called AGS International Movers http://www.agsmovers.com/ with representatives worldwide, so we requested a free quote and got a reply from a UK company called DoreeBonner https://www.doreebonner.co.uk/ and their local Glasgow representative was called Gordon Clark. Other companies that make up the group for UK coverage have the following web addresses : https://www.expressremovals.co.uk/, https://www.johnduncanremovals.co.uk/, https://www.packitin.com/, https://www.officemovinguk.com/, https://www.emigratingoverseas.com/ .

The name of the company in Cape Verde is AGS Frasers, https://agsfrasers.com and their representative is Yoann Lacerda, tel + 238 2623622

We arranged a meeting with Gordon Clark and he came to our house and explained the whole process of the door-to –door service that could be provided, he took a more detailed inventory and later sent us the quote, which in fact was on a par with the quote we received from PSS Removals, so we were very happy.

Original guesstimate of shipping time was 6-8 weeks so I picked the date of collection from home as 14/03/2016. On the contract that I then received from the hauliers it was quoted as 25-30 days so I just left the pick up as that date.

The timescales we were given 7-10 days for transfer from home to head office in Dartford, and 25-30 days shipment to Cape Verde, plus added time in customs meant that we had to count backwards from our expected arrival date on Sal (04/05/2016) and have everything ready for the move by end March 2016, which we did and it was all collected on 14/03/2016.

In accordance with Cape Verde customs documentation (copy attached) the paperwork we had to send to Yoann Lacerda was copy of passports, copy of visas (minimum multi-entry visa), copy of deeds to property, inventory of goods with value (just used value for insurance), proof of UK address, and statement of where main residence would be. (UK or Cape Verde). Bills of Laden were provided by shipping firm.

We arrived on Sal on 04/05/2016 and found that our container had arrived and was sitting at Palmeira Docks and had been there since 26/04/2016. We had to travel to Espargos to meet Yoann’s colleague Sonia Almeida email: salmeida@translogisticcv.com and sign a customs declaration and then wait and see if customs were going to release our container, unfortunately this was not to be, so we had to return to the UK and ask friends on Sal Island to deal with the delivery of the container when it was released by customs.

Sonia kept in contact via email and informed us when the bills required paying of which there were three:

1.Storage charges at port – days @ 520 CV$/day

2.Customs storage - days @€10/day

3.Customs - approx. 96% of insured value.

Once these bills were paid our container was delivered and unloaded into the apartment on Vila Verde on 14/06/2016.

Costs for movement of goods from port to VV were all included in the price paid to UK company as it was a door to door service including all paperwork for customs etc.

In summary, we believe the company we chose and its representatives both in UK and Cape Verde took all the stress out of our move and would recommend them and use them again if required. As for the customs process in Cape Verde, this is just another example of African Red Tape intertwined like the ribbons on a Maypole.