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.
- Read the full opinion piece in our “Colums” section .
