THE CUSTOMS and Excise EDI project is back on track, and Johannesburg Internat-
ional Airport is likely to be the first to have the system fully implemented.
After a few initial shaky starts, we are moving ahead, Hennie Marais, South African Revenue Services (SARS) EDI project manager, told FTW.
Project participants, involving customs and excise, the South African Association of Freight Forwarders (SAAFF) the S A Shippers Council and SACOB have accepted that JIA should be the first point to benefit because of the huge volume of documents processed there.
This may necessitate the earlier upgrade of that office's computer hardware due for installation in September. Other sectors will follow to complete the efforts of the EDI Working Group meetings which have been held during recent years.
It had been previously approved that customs and excise should work towards April 1 this year as a date to start with pilot testing.
This milestone was accomplished with time to spare, says Marais.
On March 11 this year customs received its first UN/EDIFACT (United Nations/ Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport) test of a customs declaration (CUSDEC) message from one of its trading partners. The purpose of this exercise, says Marais, was mainly to test the communication between the client and customs as well as to check the message for correctness of the UN/EDIFACT syntax.
Once the messages are translated via the SARS EDI server they are processed through the customs internal test system which has been modified to accommodate EDI. Responses are automatically generated at various stages of the processing cycle, advising the client of the progress of the declaration.
Those who have been part of this project regard this as a major step to modernise and improve the processes involved in over-border trade. This is in line with the goals of SARS to render a better and more professional service to our clients and is also in line with the new customs modernisation project currently gaining momentum, says Marais.
Testing continues on a daily basis with EDI processes totally automated. The quality of the data received thus far exceeds initial expectations and once customs is comfortable that the full processing cycle has been tested sufficiently, a pilot run will be initiated after which a date will be set to implement the system in full.
Phase 1 of the EDI project must be seen as a building block for other major electronic commerce projects which are in the pipeline. These include receiving of electronic manifest information, permit details, financial EDI, and VAT declarations.
When taking all of this into account it will be appreciated that customs will not be doing everything overnight but a step in the right direction has definitely been taken.
BY LEONARD NEILL
