Forwarders must gear up for new Customs Bills

Freight forwarders need to up their game if they want to be ready for the South African Revenue Service (Sars) new Customs Bills. Virusha Subban, a director with law firm Bowman Gilfillan, said that while the drafting of the new Bills was slowly churning along, on the back of it Sars had a lot happening operationally. “Ten years ago I worked for Sars and a lot of money was spent on rolling out programmes willy nilly that were not successful. That is no longer the case. They are very focused on implementation and do it border post by border post, ridding their systems of errors and making sure that everything works. They have upped their game significantly and if you want to be ready so should you.” Speaking at the South African Association of Freight Forwarders (Saaff) annual conference in Cape Town last week, Subban said this was the message from Sars which says it is presently busy with a roll-out of its preferred trader programme, strengthening border control and intergovernmental coordination at border posts, deploying cargo and container scanners at border posts and developing a customs risk screening tool. “So while the process of drafting the new Bills and the Rules is much slower now than the operational aspects they are implementing, one must remember that at some point they will both take off and if we are not ready we will be left behind.” She said the new Bills would replace the Custom and Excise Act no 91 of 1964, which was old and outdated. “Undoubtedly change is needed but with change comes a lot of uncertainty and we must ensure we as trade are in a position to understand and comply with the new law.” Whilst the Draft Customs Control Bill and the Draft Customs Duty Bill have both been viewed, the Excise Duty Bill and the Rules that guide the three bills has yet to be drafted. According to Sars, they are in the process of drafting the rules and will circulate a first draft as soon as possible after Cabinet has approved the two draft bills. They remain hopeful that the two bills will be tabled in Parliament during the second half of 2012. “The framework of the new bills is truly an attempt by Sars to make things simpler and faster. They are moving at lightning speed and therefore it is imperative that intermediaries such as yourselves familiarise yourselves with the new law sooner rather than later.”