This is why it takes so long for South Africans to receive international tech

Technology distributor Tarsus has said that it can take eight months or longer to get the letter of authority (LOA) needed to import new electronic devices into the country.

This makes it difficult for South African distributors to secure stock at launch of items for which there is a lot of demand across Europe and the Middle East.

It is partly due to the onerous electro-technical LOA procedure that limited quantities of Asus’s new high-end Republic of Gamers monitors will be available locally.

The LOA procedure goes through the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications (NRCS).

Tarsus said the procedure not only slows down the availability of high-end monitors, but any device that needs to plug into a wall socket – such as notebook PCs.

On top of this, if the NRCS finds fault with a single document in an LOA application, you go to the back of the queue.

“That’s what happened with the new Asus monitors,” said Tarsus.

The NRCS didn’t accept the Energy Star certification that is valid elsewhere in the world, and required a local compliance certificate for the monitors.

LOAs are also only valid for 2-3 years per device, said Tarsus.

This article was republished with permission from MyBroadband