Core Freight Systems is encouraging registration for the South African Revenue Service (Sars) Automated Cargo Management (ACM) System. According to Sydney Ramoorthy of Core Freight Systems, Sars implemented the automated system on May 6 as a replacement of the Manifest Acquittal System or MAS. The objective behind this application is for Sars to validate customs declarations via reference to the documentation associated with the physical cargo movement. This input will allow Customs to manage its risk evaluation more effectively and provide smoother processing for the agents submitting bills of entry which are supported by the relevant cargo messages. According to Sars, a guideline to determine registration is if a company or the overseas principal it represents domestically contracts the carriage of goods via sea or airfreight to South Africa on the basis of a transport document (e.g. bill of lading or air waybill). If this is the case, then registration is necessary. “Note that this is applicable at both the masterbill and housebill level. Therefore, if you do “forwarding” in any respect, we believe that you should be registered with Sars,” says Ramoorthy. “It is not limited to the obvious candidates like a shipping or airline only.” The ACM system is currently applicable for both air and sea cargo imports and the submission of the relevant messages via EDI is integrated into the CoreFreight application. “Although Sars has to date been lenient in the enforcement of the requirement to submit this data you are encouraged to take the requisite action to ensure that your company is properly registered and therefore enabled to transmit the data whenever appropriate. If this has not yet been considered and actioned within your organisation, please give this the attention it warrants,” says Ramoorthy.
