Uganda, Where a Book Can Cost a Month's Salary (bbc.com)

An anonymous reader shared with us a BBC report on Uganda, where books are unbelievably expensive to afford. The publication reports that it almost feels like a black market for people looking to purchase a book in the landlocked country in East Africa. A book Nothing Left To Steal by South African journalist Mzilikazi wa Afrika (less than $15 on Amazon.com), for instance, is selling in the country for 140,000 Ugandan shillings ($42). This might sound reasonable to most of us, but for a country with a poor economy, BBC reports, this amount can "buy a week's worth of groceries for a family." People, in fact, look for friends going on a foreign trip to help them buy books. Many books are simply not available to them, and the ones that are, they are too expensive in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. From the report: I did splurge once on a book by Guinea's revolutionary leader Ahmed Sekou Toure. It set me back $60 -- the pan-Africanist in me got the better of me that day. Waitresses in downtown Kampala barely earn $60 in a month.One of the encouraging things mentioned in the report is a growing desire among people to read books and wanting to share it with their friends and families despite the struggle. Someone named Rosey Sembatya has started the Malaika Children's Mobile Library. "My sister has four children now and I've been finding it very difficult to buy them books because they're quite expensive," she told BBC. The library is in the spare room of a two-bedroom house she rents. For a $30 annual fee, each child can borrow three books a week. It's an incredible read, and we urge you to read it in its entirety.

Comments

Ugandans should set up wish lists

[Cruciform]

I don't know if Amazon still does it this way, but a long while back you could choose to randomly fill in items on someone else's wishlist.

Some kid in the Canary Islands had a list of books they wanted for Xmas, so I completed their list for them and Amazon shipped it without any details other than country of the recipient and basic profile info.

Being able to buy a book for someone who can't afford it is rewarding. And I bet they'd appreciate being able to create small neighborhood libraries of the gifts :)

Re:Ugandans should set up wish lists

[Incadenza]

That would work if Uganda's postal service was reliable. Unfortunately it is not. When I was there in 2014 I tried to find a post office to be able to send some cards home. Nobody even knew where it was, the basic reply was “Why would you use the postal service when you can use the Internet?”.

Re:Ugandans should set up wish lists

[Spazmania]

Ugandan commerce has a -severe- shrinkage problem.

Shrinkage is the difference between the number of items entering the supply chain and the number of items sold at retail. It's the total count of items lost, broken or stolen before they can be sold.

The $42 price reflects the two copies that vanish before the third reaches a paying customer. A -severe- shrinkage problem.

Join this book scanner project

[mspohr]

Hackaday.io has a project to develop an automatic book scanner for Ethiopia. Uganda could use this to make books easily available.

https://hackaday.io/project/10...

Why is there such a price difference?

[mi]

less than $15 on Amazon.com, for instance, is selling in the country for 140,000 Ugandan shillings ($42)

Why is there such a price difference? And why has not a cunny capitalist set up a book (re)selling shop — ordering on Amazon for $15 and selling locally for $16?

Ok, maybe $1 is too optimistic, but $27 seems too much for a free country. And if it is not free, then they have a much bigger problem, than book-prices...

Re:Why is there such a price difference?

[stephanruby]

Why is there such a price difference? And why has not a cunny capitalist set up a book (re)selling shop — ordering on Amazon for $15 and selling locally for $16?

Ok, maybe $1 is too optimistic, but $27 seems too much for a free country. And if it is not free, then they have a much bigger problem, than book-prices...

Yes, $1 would be overly optimistic.

In the US alone, Amazon usually charges $3.99 for shipping a $15 book.

I don't know what shipping costs from the US to Uganda, or from Europe to Uganda, but I assume it has to cost more than $4 (unless you ship by boat through third or fourth class mail, which may take several months). Also since most peoples homes in Uganda are on streets with no name and have no number on their house, I assume that will add to the cost if they have to go through these private intermediaries with pick up locations with lockers

Duty Rates
Uganda applies duties and tariffs of the East African Community (EAC) Common External Tariff. Customs duty is levied at rates between 0% and 100%, with an average rate of 25%.
Sales Tax
Imports into Uganda are subject to a standard VAT rate of 18%, levied on the sum of the CIF value, duty, and other applicable taxes.
Minimum thresholds
There is no minimum threshold for imports into Uganda; therefore duty and taxes are payable regardless of the value.
http://www.dutycalculator.com/...

So with a duty of 25% and VAT of 18%, that makes a surcharge of 43%. Add to that the cost of insurance for the total value + total taxes. Let's say another $4 for that insurance (but it could be worse if the postal service in Uganda has a bad reputation).

Which brings me to my next point. By this point, the customer in Uganda has contacted you several times and told you not to use insurance and told you to declare the book as a gift having $0 value, which really puts you in a difficult bind. The customer assures you that the package won't be stopped by customs if nothing of value is declared, and that everybody does the same thing and that it's perfectly fine. But the fact is, there is always a chance that the package will be stopped and confiscated by customs for having lied on the customs.

Now I don't know what that rate is in Uganda. I have never shipped anything to Uganda, but I can tell you that the rate in France 10 years ago was around of 7%. So ten years ago, when my customers residing in France would beg me to send them an item from the US without declaring its value to avoid the 20-40% customs surcharge that came for some of the items I was shipping, the package would get intercepted and confiscated by customs roughly 7% of the time.

And of course, the customer in France would get really upset when that happened and would rate me poorly if I didn't eat the cost and try again. And of course, the customer would rate me negatively as well if I did declare the full value and insured things properly without paying the customs and tax, because in the end the customer would get hit with a large customs and tax fee upon delivery.

Re:Why is there such a price difference?

[Harlequin80]

I get where you are coming from. But there isn't a demand for books in Uganda that can be exploited. There may be a significant desire to own books but this is materially different from economic demand. In this instance I am saying the journalist is a fool.

As for free to allow imports, I think that depends on your definition. Their infrastructure sucks, corruption is high, and transport risks are huge. You aren't going to be able to import books on a 1 by 1 basis, TNT isn't going to be a suitable delivery service. So you have to make a significant investment in importing a container of books, which puts you in the sights of those who want their cut. This would easily have the effect of doubling the cost of imported books.

As for stolen books changing the price a retailer can charge, that is only the case if the books end up in the retail Ugandan market.

Re:Ship Your Extra Books to Places Like Uganda

[Incadenza]

First, is English taught and understood there?

Ever heard of this site called Wikipedia?

Re:Why are books so expensive there anyways?

[rasmusbr]

It's a safe bet that it is due to low demand. You need a lot of readers who read a lot of books in order to get economies of scale in a book import and distribution business.

It probably doesn't help that Uganda is a landlocked country with poor freight infrastructure. Imagine how expensive books would be in rural inland USA if there were no highways, railways or airports.

Re:Expensive books - not only in Uganda

[Swave An deBwoner]

Interesting; is it really true that the publishers can forbid professors to use older editions or do the professors just cave because they want their free professional copies of the publisher's books?

Re:Library Purges

[KGIII]

Hmm... It's probably not that expensive to ship a container. I've a buddy in the Norfolk, VA area who is sort of in the business so I might be able to get a free/donated container. I've shipped a Honda to Japan and back for restoration but I'm pretty sure a container full of books will weigh a lot more. Still, it can't be that bad. If you ever actually get a container's worth of books and really want to ship them there, I would be willing to help with that.

Note: I've been to a few African countries. You're gonna need bribe money - even for books. I also have no idea how you get a container from the coast all the way in to Uganda. I'm sure someone knows how to accomplish it. But yeah, if you ever seriously get a container of books then I'll help you get them as far as the coast. Someone else can help the rest of the way. (We can call it the Slashdot Literary Express.)

It can't be *that* expensive to ship a container to Africa from a major port on the East Coast. I've spent money on far more stupid things. Much, much more stupid things... Also, it's gonna take bribe money - I'm not kidding about that. It's partially morbid curiosity - how does one get a container full of books to Uganda? It's probably less than 10k to ship the container so you don't really need "a couple of rich dudes" to do this. If you're serious and want to do some leg work, the email address works. I'll be going back through the VA area at the end of this week or the start of next week so I can stop in and beg for a container for you - he's got a yard full of 'em. (No, not that kind of yard. He owns a small trucking company.)

They have internet?

[Sir Holo]

Tell them to go to Project Gutenberg!

Then, either read on-screen, or print 4-up, double-sided, to take home.