Customs put plans in place to deal with repetitive stops

SA Revenue Service Customs
has taken decisive action to
address complaints around
repetitive customs stops.
“There have been various
complaints from industry
and we have listened as we
always do and come up with
a solution,” Penny Bologo,
executive – Customs and
Excise Processing, told
delegates at a JCCI/FTW
business breakfast last week.
One of the recurring
questions is – “if you have
stopped my cargo so many
times and have found
no problem, why do you
continue to do so?”
“The answer,” said Bologo,
“is that the risk rules on
the system are mostly
commodity-specific rather
than client-specific and if
you are shipping a particular
commodity, it may continue
to be stopped until the risk
on such goods has been
eliminated.”
In order to standardise
the concept of dealing with
repetitive stops, Customs has
come up with a procedure to
be followed by shippers who
feel their cargo has been
unfairly targeted.
“When you realise that
goods have been stopped
several times you need to
upload the history of your
transactions to the system
together with the packing
list, the historical stop
records and the rationale
as to why you think this is
a repetitive stop,” Bologo
explained. “Sometimes
clients complain of repetitive
stops but when
checked , it turns
out there have
been two
shipments in
six months.”
A team has
been tasked
to calculate
what should
be regarded as
repetitive and
every customer
processing
centre – in
Durban,
Cape Town, Alberton and
Doringkloof – will apply this
formula across the board.
Traders have been requested
to ensure that before they
raise their concerns on
repetitive stops, they have
checked that the bills of
entry in question are for the
same commodity, the same
country of origin, the same
importer and the same
supplier .
Chief officer
Customs &
Excise, Jed
Michaletos,
has also urged
shippers to
engage with
the authority
when they have
complaints of
this nature.
“Our mandate
is to control
the movement of all goods
into and out of South
Africa. We need to know
100% of every single box
that lands at our ports
and reconcile that back to
the declarations – and the
manifest processing system
(MPR) which went live
recently is a
stride towards
achieving
that.
“If you look
at percentages
our
interventions
are between
2 and 3%
of the total
trade and
our hit ratios
are between
30 and 50%
in some instances. We are
homing in on the right
things.”
While in the ideal world
one would like to see
interventions down to
1% with a hit ratio of
over 80%, there are a lot
of initiatives in place to
improve the risk engine.
“We are constantly
looking at how to
improve the intelligence
and targeting to make sure
that we don’t hamper trade.
That’s our objective. Many
of you get frustrated with
us but all I can appeal is to
share the information with
us, engage with us.”
Bologo has also urged
stakeholders to use the
contact
centre if they
have any
queries. “If
the contact
centre doesn’t
have an
answer there
are different
tiers in the
process where
your query
gets escalated
– right up to
the Centre of
Excellence where we have
all the specialists. A lot of
queries are very basic and
the contact centre can deal
with those.”
Queries regarding
processing issues should
be directed to Henson.
msongweni@sars.gov.za
while interpretative issues
can be forwarded to neeraj.
roopnarain@sars.gov.za
INSERT & CAPTION
The risk rules on the
system are mostly
commodity-specific
rather than clientspecific.
– Penny Bologo