Adding to the intransigence of the Navy personnel who refused to release the instruments due to the lack of an invoice to cover the 50 used instruments donated by three Swiss schools to children in Chiapas, was the demand for nearly 100,000 pesos in storage fees.
And although this fee was later waived, the bureaucratic labyrinth of the Veracruz Customs office, operated by Navy personnel, who threatened to destroy the batch of violins, flutes, and other instruments, required the intervention of one of the businesswomen closest to Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum to finally release them.
Payments for “storage,” hiring a customs broker, obtaining a health certificate, paying tariffs… the Chiapas Youth Sinfonietta Cultural Foundation had to navigate a tortuous administrative process to release the shipment of 50 musical instruments and 31 music stands that had been stored for three months in customs facilities at the Port of Veracruz and were in danger of being destroyed.
The violins, clarinets, flutes, and harps are now in the hands of the Chiapas Youth Sinfonietta, after the Rotary Club of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, delivered the shipment to musician Roberto Peña Quesada, founder and director of the School-Orchestra. The instruments, donated by schools in Switzerland, are intended for the musical education of underprivileged children and young people in Chiapas.
“The arrival of these instruments for the students of the Youth Sinfonietta School-Orchestra marks the beginning of a consolidation phase, with the enrollment of many more children and a substantial improvement in their performance level. They will now have their own high-quality instruments, which will significantly enhance the orchestra’s sound,” celebrates musician Peña Quesada, former director of the Chiapas Symphony Orchestra.
Fábrica de Periodismo reported in September that a batch of instruments—22 violins, one viola, 20 transverse flutes, three recorders, three clarinets, one piccolo (smaller than a flute), one trumpet, one small harp, one piccolo trumpet, and 31 music stands—was at risk of being destroyed by Navy personnel assigned to the Veracruz Customs Office.
When the foundation requested the instruments, the marines denied their release and informed them that they first had to present the purchase invoice for each instrument, a certificate of authenticity, and a health certificate proving that the wood was free of woodworm.
The instruments had been donated by three schools in Switzerland to the school orchestra, but the marines threatened to destroy the batch if the foundation did not provide the requested documents.
The information reached the morning press conference of Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, who requested that the case be addressed.
Altagracia Gómez Sierra, coordinator of the Presidential Advisory Council for Economic Development, contacted the musician Roberto Peña Quesada.
“She called me and told me that the container with the instruments and music stands was listed as ‘abandoned’ in a private warehouse and that no one knew anything about its origin,” the musician explained to Fábrica de Periodismo.
Peña Quesada found it inexplicable that the container was classified as “abandoned” because Nauta, the Swiss company responsible for shipping the container to the Port of Veracruz, was the one who notified him that the instruments would be destroyed “because they didn’t have the invoices for the instruments or the certificates required by Mexican Customs.”
The next day, Roberto Peña received another call, this time from Rear Admiral Luis Guerra Chacón, head of Customs at the Port of Veracruz. He explained that “the owner of the shipment must hire a customs broker to handle all the required paperwork. If everything is in order, the cargo will be released from the warehouse, and then the customs procedures can be completed.” His container, he was told, was in a warehouse; “he must pay 1,500 pesos per day to get it out.”
Roberto Peña lost hope of recovering the instruments: the accumulated storage debt was nearly 100,000 pesos. The Youth Sinfonietta Foundation is a non-profit organization and lacks the financial capacity to make such a payment.
Source: fabricadeperiodismo
