Access control at Ortia tops Acoc agenda

There are two main issues on the agenda for the Air Cargo Operators’ Committee (Acoc) for this year, according to chairman Alwyn Rautenbach, MD of Airlink Cargo. “We have to tackle access and egress control at OR Tambo International Airport (Ortia) in Johannesburg and other airports,” he told FTW, “in conjunction with airport operators, the Airports Company of SA (Acsa).” In this, Acoc would like to make more use of the identification verification system (IVS). “This,” he said, “is the system chosen by the air cargo industry in SA for identifying and controlling cargo drawers and warehouses. Both the cargo handlers, Swissport, and the national carrier, SAA, have adopted it. “We’re using it for withdrawals – and linking all forwarding agents to it. But we’d like to link it to access control at Acsa’s Ortia warehousing – where it would identify everyone entering or exiting the area and for scanning cargo at the terminal.” Once this is achieved the Acoc intent is to roll it out to Cape Town, and then to the other airports around the country. A second challenge is the automation of the SA Revenue Service (Sars) customs procedures. In this, Acoc is supporting Sars in its efforts to link all the procedures affecting air cargo onto electronic data interchange (EDI). A recent event was the introduction last May of Sars’ automated cargo management (ACM) system – the electronic solution for the receipt and processing of prescribed reports for international cargo imported to or exported from SA. “At the moment, ACM has come a long way,” Rautenbach told FTW, “but a few things like removal in bond (RIB) and removal in transit (RIT) still need to have all their releases submitted electronically as well.” It’s a bit of a problem, he added, but stressed that Acoc, the SA Association of Freight Forwarders (Saaff) and Sars had been discussing the possible solutions in-depth at workshops and other meetings. “We’ll definitely get there eventually,” Rautenbach insisted.