Draft regulations likely to precede new port licensing requirement

ALAN PEAT FURTHER DETAILS of the practicalities of licensing all port, terminal and similar operations announced by minister of finance Trevor Manuel in his budget speech remain sketchy. Manuel said that legislative changes would be made to both private and public businesses to enforce the ruling which is intended to achieve more effective customs control. According to Moshe Motlohi, chief operations manager at Durban container terminal (DCT), SA Port Operations (Sapo) is aware of this intended procedure – but no detail has yet been revealed. As far as customs is concerned, it seems to fit in with the whole policy of a more focused approach to effective control of the ports, Durban-based Deon Smith of the SA Revenue Service (Sars) told FTW. It appears to be part of customs and trade compliance and of Sars’ customs accreditation process, according to Riaan de Lange of SA Tariff and Trade Solutions. “In line with the established accreditation process presently applied to forwarders and hauliers,” he said, “it would seem to be intended to complete the whole value chain – and getting everyone in that chain to make themselves known.” De Lange expects draft regulations to be published in the near future – giving all the interested parties a chance to make comments before the licensing actually takes place.