Sars stands by 10% inspection rate

AS PART of the international move towards sea cargo security, the SA Revenue Service (Sars) is hoping that before year-end it can finalise a multi-million rand tender to buy scanners that will X-ray 10% of import and export containers passing through SA ports and land border posts. This is the second call for a tender after Sars cancelled the first because it considered the R1.5-billion bid too expensive. It has also changed the conditions for the tender, with the first being to supply, maintain AND operate scanners. The current tender is being evaluated only for their supply and maintenance. This plan for non-intrusive inspection has been partly prompted by the container security initiative (CSI) which was agreed between Sars and US customs in 2003, and which stipulated that SA should develop a container scanning capability. But, said press reports, there is a scheme brewing in the US for the compulsory scanning of 100% of the boxes entering the US compared to the current international norm for scanning 6% of the containers passing through ports. Despite this apparent disparity in thinking, Sars indicated to FTW that there had been no policy indication from the US that SA would have to alter its present plan, according to spokesman, Adrian Lackay. The local reports, he added, had originated in a Bloomberg press release. It highlighted that the business groups, BusinessEurope and the US Chamber of Commerce, had been in touch with the heads of the US homeland security committees of the house of representatives and the senate – and had called for the 100% scanning plan to be dropped. “The effect of this (100% scanning) on economic efficiency,” Lackay told FTW, “would be huge. “But our policy is to carry out a non-intrusive inspection of containers that does not unduly disrupt the facilitation of trade.” He was adamant that the Sars plan for a 10% inspect