Effective from November 1, cargo reporters who have failed to comply with SA Revenue Service’s (Sars) mandatory electronic submission of reports may be liable for a fine of R5000.
The revenue authority last week made it clear that the November 1 deadline for compliance with the Reporting of Conveyances and Goods (RCG) project would not be postponed. “Enough is enough,” acting chief officer Customs & Excise, Beyers Theron, told a packed auditorium at last week’s Customs business breakfast jointly hosted by FTW and the JCCI. “In April we went live and wanted 100% submission but we were not there. We moved the deadline out to August 1. That date came and went – and we decided to give a little more time. November 1 has come and we hear people are still not ready. It comes to a point where enough is enough. We have to go live with the mandatory requirement.”
Under RCG, it is mandatory for all cargo reporters in the air, sea, rail and road industries involved in the movement of international cargo to submit reports to Sars electronically. In the road freight sector, following the introduction of the Manifest Processing (MPR) system, compliance by hauliers was around 30%. “Once it got to this stage with road we started penalising people, and virtually within a month we moved to over 90%.
“In seafreight and air we have invested more, starting in 2003 with MAS and then ACM where we had the facility for data take-on. We have been working with the sea and air freight environments and we now have an important piece of technology which will not be a standalone system but integrated into the full customs technology suite. And we still have sea and air at just over 50%. How much more time do we need to give them?”
In November 2019 Customs aims to go live with release 2B of RCG which is fully automated case creation.
“We are going to significantly reduce the impact of manual inspections at the coal face. Here we have all the data pieces that enable us to automatically create cases within the frontline environment.
“This is a significant implementation – not only from our perspective but in terms of the benefits it provides for trade through automation and automated case management.” Customs liaison manager at Berry & Donaldson, Clifford Evans, believes a huge part of the industry is not ready yet, but agrees that industry has had more than enough time to get its act to together.
“Some of the service providers don’t have their programmes in place which means that people who need to report can’t do so because they don’t have the platform.” He said customs had agreed to hold a workshop in Cape Town – although this would not happen before November 1. “We agree that they can’t keep moving out the deadline. Customs has given us enough time to be compliant.”
And in terms of the R5000 penalty, Evans believes that customs is likely to err on the side of leniency. “They understand that there are problems and that industry isn’t ready.
“I’m not having a sleepless about the penalties. It’s likely to be phased in but people need to get ready.”
Beyers Theron addresses delegates at last week’s business breakfast on customs’ future plans.
