Over a month and parcel still hasn't arrived

I sent a birthday parcel to my friend in Botswana and they said it would take 3-5 working days and it has been over a month now and the parcel still hasn't arrived. I had to notify them and contact them to find what is going on with the parcel to find out that it is has been sitting in customs awaiting payment for import tax. We had to email them asking how much is due and how do we pay. I'll give it to them they were quick to respond to the emails and the pricing was cheap but when we sent an inquiry about the cost they didn't have the required information and the parcel had the same status for weeks, I feel like if we didn't ask the parcel would have sat there and probably would have been forgotten about. Unfortunately, I know regret going through them as a courier service and in future I will pay the extra charge to go through someone else and I will not be recommending them to anyone in the future if this is how they do business.