Accreditation will speed truckers through borders

Roll-out of system accelerated ALAN PEAT AN ACCELERATION of the system of customs accreditation is soon to be rolled out to the SA trucking industry, according to Costa Pierides, project manager for accreditation. “It has been successfully implemented in the freight forwarding industry,” he told FTW, “but the road freight industry would like to see more accreditation within that sector – because of the faster processing through electronic data interchange (EDI).” The primary intention of the extension to accreditation of truckers is to allow for faster processing of documents at border posts – using the CCA1 document which the SA Customs Union (SACU) countries use as a customs import and export document, largely related to value-added tax (VAT). “The CCA1 will be processed more quickly, and pre-border submission will give the vehicle a green line through the post,” said Pierides. “This will give competitive advantage to those who are using this processing procedure.” Customs has already entered a pilot phase – electronically processing documentation before the vehicle from the guinea-pig trucking company got to the border. “This has been very successful,” Pierides told FTW, “and we will now roll out the system to other trucking companies.” It has not all been plain sailing though, he added. The programme has had “certain drawbacks”, which have slowed down the start of the roll-out process. “We have also not had the level of compliance we wanted from the industry,” Pierides said, “and we’re trying to tidy this up by monitoring things more closely.” Any companies found to be unable to achieve the minimum status will be “red-flagged”. “They would then be given time to meet the criteria,” Pierides said, “and if they still can’t match the standards, they will be removed from the accredited list.” There is also a two-way communication programme planned by Pierides, with a session of workshops on the diary before the trucking industry roll-out begins.