Electronic clearances take from 15 minutes up

‘Most glitches sorted out’ Alan Peat WHEN IT’S good it’s very, very good, but when it’s bad it’s rotten. That’s the overall opinion of prominent members of the airfreight forwarding industry about the electronic customs clearance system at Johannesburg International Airport (JIA). In a snap survey conducted by FTW just before this “known customer” system rolls out to the other customs centres around the country, the feeling was that the worrying glitches that had bedevilled the JIA operation during its bedding-in phase have now mostly been sorted out. Raymond van Wyk of Kuehne & Nagel, for example, estimates the average clearance time under the system as “about 3-4 hours”. He has only recorded one real problem. “But we had full feedback from customs, and this was sorted out,” Van Wyk told FTW. Bax Global’s Alan Ingham, meantime, said: “When it’s working, it’s somewhere around 2-3 hours average.” He does, however, indicate that there are still glitches there which need to be sorted out. “But it’s getting better,” Ingham told FTW, “and we’re definitely going in the right direction.” Safcor Panalpina’s operations manager for imports, Celliers Greyling, agreed. “We do get hiccups now and again,” he said. “But fast clearances can be in anything from 15 minutes to one hour - although some go out to about eight hours to a day when they have line problems or similar. “However, it’s working well at the moment, and it’s definitely a great benefit for us in getting fast clearances for our airfreight import consignments.” Peter Krafft, m.d. of Rohlig Grindrod, is quite metaphorical in his assessment of the system. Sometimes it’s through in half-an-hour, he told FTW, and, on average, his company gets its clearances in 2-4 hours. “But,” he added lyrically, “computers are more delicate than women, and sometimes don’t give you what they offer.”