James Hall
IMPORTERS INTO Swaziland from South Africa are up in arms over an unexplained and unexpected change in customs declaration procedure at border posts. Importers of goods into the kingdom are now required to pay a private firm on the South African side to process paperwork previously done by South African customs agents at no charge.
Complaints centre around a customs and excise declaration of goods form, the CCA1, which is available at the border posts from vendors for R2 or R3. Previously while filling out these forms, importers consulted the Tariff Heading book at the customs counter.
A non-governmental firm that has apparently been awarded a concession now fills out CCA1 forms at a charge of R20. The Tariff Heading book is no longer available at the customs counter, but is in the possession of this company. Surprised importers who demanded to fill out forms themselves purchased these from nearby vendors, but were still required to go to the private firm for Tariff Heading book information, and to have the form stamped, at a charge of R10.
This is highway robbery, complained an importer of brochures printed in Gauteng. They even got the information wrong on the form until I corrected them.
l The way SA customs saw the issue, according to Vuso Shabalala, director of compliance at head office, was that allowing a private company to handle the form-filling at the border was done to relieve the pressure on the customs agents.
Also, he added, most importers to Swaziland were already using a forwarding agent to process documentation. And here a charge would be levied.
But, he told FTW, they are perfectly free to fill in the forms themselves.
However, if they do, they take full responsibility for any errors.
The tariff heading book, he added, should still be available at the customs counter. It's not the rule that it should be removed, Shabalala said.
Customs has already reacted to another complaint from small traders, he added.
This was where the traders - with a number of import products - faced a high charge from the private company to supply one form for each.
It was too costly for them, Shabalala said. Our recommendation to our comptrollers is that - even with 10 invoices - they should all be filled in on one CCA1.
But no further change is expected to the idea of allowing privatisation of the function previously handled free by customs agents.
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