Imports bedded down nationwide
ALAN PEAT
THE LONG awaited electronic customs clearance of imports has now gone nationwide, and is open to all accredited agents, according to Brian Mulligan, operations director of Röhlig Grindrod - a pilot company in the introduction, and the first to be able to do electronic customs clearance at Komatipoort border post.
“It is country-wide now, extending even to most of the smaller centres.
“Customs is implementing the Cape 2 system across-the-board, and it’s open to all agents once they’re accredited and have signed the electronic interchange agreement under Section 101A of the Customs Act.”
And, Mulligan added, exports are also due to go paperless in about three months.
“An agreement has been made between customs and the SA Reserve Bank (SARB) for the foreign exchange declaration to be built into the bills of entry (BoE),” he said.
“As a pilot company in this export clearance project, we have been able to accomplish this in about 20-25 minutes - a far cry from the lengthy manual process of the past, and absolutely paper-free.”
The interim procedure - still maintaining the F178 declaration - is to be a once-a-month settlement of all a company’s F178s. A process which will already speed up the current rate of export clearances in Mulligan’s view.
He also hinted that being accredited would be a big benefit to importers and exporters, and suggested that it would be in their own future interests to achieve this accreditation.
“All of them will eventually have to be accredited themselves,” he said, “or they will not be able to do electronic clearance - and will be cursed with the slow process of going through the manual clearance procedure.”
