Sars gets royal lambasting over Oshoek border delays.

Mbabane – Swaziland’s
parliament is up in arms
over what they view as
incompetence in the
handling of new customs
procedures implemented
by Sars last week at SA’s
borders with the landlocked
kingdom.
The resulting
interruptions in border post
operations – on Monday
the busiest border post at
Oshoek, which handles
most traffic to and from
Gauteng, was closed for
two hours when a computer
glitch shut down the system
– caused Swaziland’s
Foreign Affairs Minister
to be stuck in queue. He
missed an appointment
in SA.
Although FTW was
unable to ascertain what
exactly was missed by
the minister, MPs felt it
was of sufficient national
interest that they used the
“international incident” to
lambaste Sars.
“You wonder why they
decided to install a new
system just on the eve of
the World Cup. Such a thing
makes one wonder whether
our relations with our
neighbour are still what they
are made out to be,” said
Princess Ngcengencenge, a
royal family member who is
an appointed member
to parliament.
Her Royal Highness
wondered whether SA’s
border posts with other
neighbouring countries
were similarly affected, or
if only Swaziland suffered.
She moved a motion for the
Minister of Home Affairs
to get answers from his
SA counterpart, and find
ways to reduce queues and
congestion at Oshoek.
Watching from the
sidelines with bemusement
was the country’s
commercial road freight
industry – no strangers to
border post delays.
Asking not to be
identified by name or
company, one operations
manager of a Matsaphabased
road freight firm
said: “If it takes a member
of the royal family being
inconvenienced to open
government’s eyes to border
post congestion and this
brings some relief, it’s a
good thing.”