Four licensed agents and a filing cabinet
We clear about nineteen hundred consignments a year and we keep every file for five.
Sixteen years of reading other people's invoices
Bandharu opened in 2009 with two agents and a desk near the port gate. There are eleven of us now and four are licensed, and we still do the same work.
Clearance looks like a queue and it is really a reading job. Nearly everything that goes wrong with a consignment was written into the paperwork by a supplier weeks earlier: a description too vague to classify, a value that cannot be reconciled with what was paid, a line that needs a permit nobody applied for. Find those on a screen in August and they cost nothing. Find them in a container yard in September and they cost storage, demurrage and a fortnight.
So we ask for the invoice at the order stage rather than on arrival, and we charge the same fee either way. Customers who send it early get a much cheaper import for the same money, which is a strange way to run a business and it is why they stay.
We keep every file for five years, including the working behind each classification. An importer asked about a heading three years later should not be told that the person who filed it has left.
The agents
Ibrahim Munavvar
Opened the practice in 2009 after eleven years in the trade. Takes the classification arguments and the valuation appeals himself.
Aishath Shiyama
Reads the invoices before the ships leave. If your duty came to you in writing with a heading beside every line, she wrote it.
Hassan Thoyyib
Air cargo and courier consignments, including the small urgent ones. Works Saturdays and most public holidays.
Fathimath Nuzuha
Holds the duty deposits and keeps every file for five years. Ask her about a monthly account if you clear more than twice a month.
What we charge and what we will not do
What do you charge?
A fee per declaration based on the number of lines rather than the value of the goods, a fixed lower fee for courier consignments, and an hourly rate for opinions, appeals and permit applications.
Duty, port charges and storage are passed on at cost with the receipts. We never add a margin to duty.
Do you arrange the freight as well?
No, deliberately. We are agents rather than forwarders, so our advice about your shipment has no freight margin behind it.
We work alongside whichever carrier or forwarder you use, and most of our regular importers came to us through one of them.
Can you review declarations another agent filed?
Yes, and we do it often, including for importers who have no agent of record any more.
Where we find an error the advice is usually to correct it voluntarily. The difference in outcome between a voluntary correction and a discovered one is large, and it does not improve with waiting.
Come and see us
Haveeree Hingun, Male. Sunday to Thursday, 8am to 5pm.