Customs lends sympathetic ear to complaints

ALAN PEAT THE CO-OPERATIVE stance promised to FTW by SA Revenue Service (Sars) customs has been further demonstrated by the latest dealings with Paragon Customs Services, which had six cargo consignment stops at Johannesburg International Airport (JIA) – none of which was justified, according to Paragon MD Jozef Rosenblatt, and all of which were handled by customs in a most unsatisfactory manner. Rosenblatt cited excessive delays in having customs’ stops carried out (an average of about a week in Paragon’s cases); the resultant storage charges that the importers had to pay the airlines during the delay, and which sometime ran up to thousands of rands; the question of why customs’ officials only completed their functions after many queries, interventions and other frustrations; a “Team Support” phone number (where queries are to be directed) that never answers; importers complaining how much revenue they lose due to the cost involved and the time delay; and the expected overall loss of revenue for SA, as discouraged importers pull out of the trade. At the height of his frustration over the whole matter, Rosenblatt addressed a detailed letter of complaint to Andries Ngobeni, customs group manager at JIA; a copy to Vuso Shabalala at customs head office in Pretoria; and (following our recent plea to readers) a copy to FTW. This followed discussions between FTW and customs, where our offer to forward readers’ complaints to Pretoria and to monitor the outcome of the action taken, was accepted by Sars – and which has already seen a number of serious gripes from readers being suitably addressed by high-level customs officials. Not necessarily solved to everyone’s satisfaction – but at least acted upon in a co-operative and investigative manner. And the Paragon issue has been met with the same attitude. In one of the simpler cases, Ngobeni was able to complete a DA74 release without the inspection even being done, but in the others he has instituted a complete records search to try to clarify all the whys, whats and wherefores of each issue. While a happy conclusion may not yet have been reached, this is all indicative of an encouraging new policy at Sars customs where the authorities are seriously taking account of clients’ complaints, and actions are being authorised to try to find satisfactory solutions to the problems which have been niggling at importers and agents, and which have revealed certain glaring holes in Sars’ policy of trade facilitation.