Electronic phyto-sanitary certificates to be piloted

At the prompting of the private sector, the Perishable Products Export Control Board (PPECB) is to take to the electronic data interchange (EDI) route – putting the necessary export documentation just a button push away. It is going to bring the PPECB in line with the other government bodies in the foreign trade arena, and remove a lot of the drudgery of the previous manual system, according to Mike Walwyn of Seaboard Maritime Services and a regional director of the SA Association of Freight Forwarders (Saaff). “When you export perishables,” he told FTW, “you need a PPECB export clearance permit. “You then trudge your weary way to the department of agriculture, and if you’re lucky you’ll get a phyto-sanitary certificate that day or the next.” To overcome this timeconsuming delay, the perishable industry’s stakeholders called for a meeting with the PPECB two months ago, and put the idea of going EDI on the table. “The PPECB is a pretty proficient crew,” said Walwyn, “and they promised to work on this.” And the plans are already on the drawing board, Nkosana Mbokane of the PPECB told FTW. “We have five phases to this,” he said. “We are currently in phase one, the foundation phase. That’s basically building up standards, and looking for a common language for the system.” But, Mbokane added, this process is expected to be signed off by the end of this month, and a pilot scheme is due to fire off early next year.