First preferred traders to be named

SA Revenue Service Customs
has put its money where
its mouth is with regard to
industry engagement and
will relaunch its national
stakeholder forum later this
year.
That was the commitment
from chief officer Customs &
Excise, Jed Michaletos, when
he addressed a packed KPMG
auditorium at a joint FTW/
JCCI business breakfast in
Johannesburg last week on
the topic ‘Customs in the 21st
century’.
“This is the start of a journey.
Customs is committed to
working with our stakeholders
to deliver on our mandate,” said
Michaletos, a mandate that
has seen a fundamental shift
in Customs administrations
worldwide from a traditional
regulatory role to economic
facilitator of legitimate trade.
“Customs administrations,
under the direction of the
World Customs Organisation,
are continuously seeking the
mechanisms to incentivise
legitimate trade and thus play
an active role in stimulating
economic growth and
development.
“And to achieve this vision
three pillars of cooperation
become important building
blocks,” said Michaletos.
The first deals with
exchange of information
between customs authorities
involving mutual recognition of
Authorised Economic Operator
(AEO) programmes and crossborder
co-operation. Sars
has key programmes in place
within the SA Customs Union,
SADC and strong partnerships
with China and the US.
“Tangible progress has
been made in achieving
automatic data exchange with
Swaziland and Mozambique
while engagements with other
regional partners have been
initiated,” he said.
Co-operation between
customs and business through
accreditation and AEO
programmes is another key
focus. “This provides extensive
facilitation benefits and
expedited processes which
through mutual recognition
are reciprocated by partner
customs administrations.
“It’s an initiative that we
intend to drive much harder on
my watch,” said Michaletos.
“First we are rolling out
the preferred trader (PT)
programme to importers and
exporters and
aim to award
full status to
the first 100
before the end
of this fiscal
year.
“We will
then look to
extend PT to
other operators
in the supply
chain and
will introduce
new licensing and registration
changes as per chapter 29 of
the new Customs Act.”
Sars is also looking to
introduce an SA Customs
Union PT regional programme
to support exporters into the
region.
“We’ll use the Sacu PT to
test our customs to customs
data exchange mechanisms
for moving and monitoring
cross-border traffic. We’re also
introducing the full World
Customs Organisation AEO
programme based on the safety
and security of premises and
processes to include all supply
chain operators.”
To support this South
Africa would enter mutual
recognition of AEOs with its
major trading partners, he
added.
“We have
already entered
into co-operation
discussions with
the US, EU and
China, our main
trading partners, in
addition to leading
our Sacu neighbours
by providing
ongoing capacity
building to help
them build their
PT programmes through IT
connectivity and supporting
infrastructures.
“Co-ordination between
customs and other government
agencies in order to coordinate
border management and
the single window are also
important instruments,” he
said.
Clearly globally networked
customs is the integrated vision
for Customs in the 21st century.
INSERT
We have already
entered into
discussions with the
US, EU and China.
– Jed Michaletos
CAPTION
Jed Michaletos addresses delegates at the FTW/JCCI
business breakfast.