South Africa’s contentious
customs bills have been
given the presidential
go-ahead and were
published in the government
gazette two weeks ago.
D-day for
implementation, however,
remains unknown and
will be announced by
presidential decree in the
government gazette once
the supporting customs
rules are in place.
According to a spokesman
for the South African
Revenue Service (Sars),
the Customs Duty Bill
was published first as the
Customs Duty Act, 2014
(Act No. 30 of 2014) in the
Gazette of July 10 following
the president's go-ahead,
while the Customs Control
Bill and the Customs and
Excise Amendment Bill
were in the process of being
published. By the time FTW
goes to print this will have
been done.
This means the bills are
now an act of Parliament
and officially the new
customs law of the country
despite not yet being
operational.
“The bills
will only
become
operational
once the
president has
advised on a
date,” said the
spokesman. It
is uncertain
when this
will be as
the process
around the
rules guiding
the acts has only just kicked
off, with the first industry
comment expected this
week.”
The first ten chapters
of the rules were
published earlier this
month with a due date of
July 29 for all external
comment.
Once all the comments
have been processed
the president will be
approached
to decide the
final date
for the new
legislation
to become
effective.
The process
has, however,
significantly
speeded
up and it is
rumoured
that the new
law will be
operational as
soon as 2015.
According to Clifford
Evans, a customs adviser
for Ceva Logistics, who has
read the first ten chapters
of the rules, there
have been no big
surprises so far.
“There are some
technical issues
that industry is
commenting on and would
request changes for,” he
told FTW.
One such item was
the rules stating that all
records relating to the
customs bills have to be
stored on the premises of
the business for a period of
time.
“That is very difficult
with limited physical
storage space for most
companies and so one can
expect that the industry
would request from Sars
that they rephrase that to
allow for off-site storage
facilities and electronic
storage as well,” he said.
“Another technical issue
that has come up is that
importers, according
to the rules, will have
to provide documents
within one day of requests
being issued by customs.
That is very difficult to
do as one might receive
the document only days
after it has been issued. It
would be understandable
if Sars requested that a
response be submitted
within a day of receiving
the documentation rather
than within a day from
the date issued, which is
unreasonable.”
Sars has called on
the freight and logistics
industry to take cognisance
of the published rules and
regulations and to ensure
comment is received within
deadline by July 29, 2014.
INSERT
The process around
the rules guiding
the acts has only
just kicked off, with
the first industry
comment expected
this week.
