The declaration processing system has changed a few times over the years, the biggest happening in 2009 when manual processing became electronic via the electronic data interchange (EDI) system.
What did not change, however, was where declarations were processed.
Air freight clearances were processed at the customs branch offices situated at the airports, clearances by road were processed at the land border posts and sea freight declarations were processed at the main seaports.
The next change was introduced a few years later when both air and sea freight declarations in Cape Town, for example, were processed by the Cape Town branch office, leaving the airport office to carry out physical inspections etc.
Although minimal, there were a few initial challenges, but trade soon became accustomed to the new system.
The next change implemented by the South African Revenue Service (Sars) created chaos within the industry when, without consultation or warning, the national pool system was introduced, whereby all declarations were channelled into the national pool and cases were allocated to the next available documentary inspector, regardless of where they were stationed.
Although chaos reigned supreme for several weeks, trade once again adapted and collaborated with customs and service providers to ensure the free flow of goods.
The clearing and forwarding industry was not in total agreement that this was a suitable process as challenges continued.
Fairly recently, Sars introduced land, air and sea modalities with all road declarations processed by the Alberton office, air freight cleared at Doringkloof, and all sea freight declarations processed by the Cape Town and Durban customs offices.
While this structure may work well for customs, it raises serious challenges for trade.
Each modality has its own management structure and escalation process, each modality hosts its own monthly meeting, and any challenges experienced by trade must be put forward to the appropriate modality, or all three if required.
Procedures and requirements frequently differ between modalities, and a major frustration is having to deal with Doringkloof, as an example, when facing a challenge clearing goods at Cape Town International Airport.
Similarly, when clearing sea freight for Cape Town, there is consistent confusion in trying to establish if the declaration was processed by the Cape Town or Durban office.
This presents a fragmented Sars, rather than a Sars striving to simplify ease of doing business.
There is no better example than the EDI crisis of 2023, during which the system crashed and, after several meetings, it was decided that air freight entries would be released by a DA74, sea freight using a CN1 and land would issue manual releases.
Trade has just welcomed the announcement that tariff, value and origin appeal committees will be introduced at branch office level, which will reduce the number of tariff determinations dealt with by Pretoria and ultimately reduce the turnaround times for these rulings to be issued.
Although it is too early for trade to have an insight into how these committees will be established and how they will function, a basic concern would be having an appeal dealt with by the Durban branch office, while the agent, the importer and the goods are situated in Cape Town.
This would, in effect, defeat the objective of branch office appeal committees. The modality structure, in its current format, may have many internal benefits for Sars, but not for trade.
