Sars appeals to trade to work together to improve data quality

“When we first launched ACM in May 2011, I explained that the introduction of ACM – and moving towards a totally paperless environment – was part of a journey,” Sars’ Beyers Theron told FTW. “For Sars and trade to get the full benefits of matching manifests with declarations, two things needed to happen – firstly, our core systems needed to be sufficiently improved, which has already happened to a large extent, but this is an ongoing process and all key stakeholders are kept constantly updated. Secondly, the data quality of manifest submissions needs to be up to a certain standard which, after almost two years, it still has not reached. “We have been engaging with many of our key clients during this time to get their data quality up to speed and have seen great success in some areas but insufficient improvement in others. For instance, we have been working intensively with the road freight industry over the past year and a half to get electronic data submission up to an acceptable standard and have seen a marked improvement in the speed at which trucks are moving through the land borders. “For the reasons above, and in the spirit of co-creation which we established at the outset with trade, we have also decided not to enforce penalties until such time as all of the above elements are in place. We appeal to trade – including clearing and forwarding agents – to work with us to get their data quality up to acceptable standards so that we can all start seeing the benefits of electronic manifest submission as soon as possible.” CAPTION Beyers Theron ... not enforcing penalties.