Industry concerned at growing powers of NRCS

The Cape Chamber’s Port Liaison Forum (PLF) is closely watching developments around the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications' (NRCS) tightening of regulations following a pilot project launched at the Port of Durban last year. The NRCS signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the South African Revenue Service (Sars) after both the NRCS and Sars Customs had commissioned a pre-border enforcement pilot project at the Durban harbour that will be extended to other ports including Cape Town. According to the NRCS, this is an effort to monitor goods that are imported into South Africa, recognising that continued improvement and the identification of gaps in regulation are necessary to ensure consumer protection in an ever-changing global market. As part of the project, the regulator has deployed inspectors at ports of entry so that noncompliant products can be intercepted at the borders before they have had an opportunity to enter the local market. According to PLF chairman Mike Walwyn, industry is wary of increasing the NRCS powers to the same level as that of Customs where they will also have to be issued with ships' manifests and other documentation. “We are hoping the NRCS does not go that route where they get their own shipping manifest from shipping lines,” he said. “This will in our opinion set a precedent for other government departments to do the same. Also, the law at this stage does not provide for this. The Customs Act clearly says shipping lines must report to customs and this process is all done electronically, but with the NRCS it will be done manually. We are duplicating and it would be unnecessary.” He said the list of goods imported that had to be controlled was easily available from the NRCS and all the NRCS-controlled tariffs were already on the customs lists. “They now seem to want shipping manifests as well. These have no bearing on the import export process for them and should be controlled through customs. Durban is dealing with this pilot project and issue first. At this stage no-one knows where this process is and what will happen, but we will watch it very closely as it will have some impact on industry.” The NCRS last year said it had to tighten controls after claims of substandard cement imports of which no evidence was later found.