Car carriers hit Customs ‘pothole’

A car carrier has got tangled up in an old piece of SA Revenue Service (Sars) legislation, and is struggling to escape its hold. The Durban-based company, Motorlog, is essentially a car carrier delivering second-hand imported vehicles to neighbouring states – established when the law changed and no longer allowed these vehicles to be driven on SA roads on the way to their final destination country. But a piece of the legislation surrounding this driven vehicle system still remains, and is now slapping legal brakes on companies using permissible car-carrying heavy vehicles. “What we do is to collect vehicles from bond stores around the city, to finally deliver them to their destination in neighbouring countries,” said Motorlog executive, Vernon Naidu. But an interim stage in this process is landing the company in a Customs’ legislation car trap. “Once we’ve collected all of our delivery vehicles,” Naidu told FTW, “we need to take them to a central point to consolidate our overborder loads – taking things like numbers, weight, size and destination into account. “But Sars is enforcing a law that hasn’t allowed for the changed circumstances, and which states that, once uplifted from a bond store, the goods have to be delivered direct to their final destination.” Motorlog has tried to put its case before Customs, and to find some way around the ruling – even to the extent of considering forking out for their consolidation centre to be also declared as a bond store. But, despite constant efforts, Naidu said that all they’d succeeded in doing was “building up reams of correspondence, and getting passed from pillar to post around Sars both nationally and locally”. The company has even quoted what it thinks is a court precedent supporting its case from the legislation surrounding the old drivea- car system. This where a truck and trailer (being driven by an approved driver) broke down and had to be taken to a garage for repairs. The truck and trailer had to be separated, as it was understood that the truck would not be in a position to pull the load given the mechanical problem. Sars insisted that this was akin to delivering to an interim point on the way to its final destination, and slapped a detention notice for the trailers on the offending delivery company. When the issue was finally taken to court, Sars lost, according to Naidu. “Our consolidation yard is a similar situation,” he said, “and should be exempt from the ruling of direct delivery to the final destination.” The issue that needs clarity from Sars is the use of the word “Diversion” in its ruling. “What is it? asked Naidu. “Is it the entering of bonded cargo for home consumption – or a change of routing? Also, he questioned why Sars was taking such a strong stance on procedure. “When these vehicles were driven by the foreign buyers,” Naidu added, “they were allowed 21 days from the time the temporary road permit was issued to the crossing of the border – and they could have gone anywhere before actually leaving this country.” The story still continues.