Thumbs up for Kopfontein pilot

The implementation by Sars Customs of several key changes at Kopfontein on the Botswana border on February 11 has attracted a predominantly positive response from all involved. The Kopfontein implementation is a pilot of various system, policy and process changes that will be introduced at all Sacu border posts (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland) over the next few months – all aimed at speeding up the movement of commercial vehicles and tightening up controls at the ports. “Last year a number of similar changes were implemented at other Customs border posts, which radically changed the way in which trade is conducted. This year, the focus is on the Sacu ports with further changes expected as part of the Customs Modernisation Release 3,” group executive: customs trade operations, Rae Cruikshank, told FTW. “The roll-out of the Kopfontein pilot went exceptionally well,” Compu- Clearing’s Homith Hooseria told FTW. “Prior to the ‘go live’ we held seminars at our offices attended by close to 100 people. We also provided a manual on the changes as well as a presentation, which we uploaded to our website. “On Saturday, we had our help-desk, ops division and account managers on standby, and they reported no increase in the call volumes and queries,” he said. Chrissie du Barry of ShipShape Software was also more than satisfied with the start. “We had no problems. Only a few of our clients use that border but we made sure that they were aware of what was required. “Customs did the right thing starting with a small border post. We’ll all learn a lot from it and ultimately it will be good for the whole industry,” she told FTW. Gideon Olivier of Easyclear, sent through the very first electronic supporting documents on the system. He said the agent submitted the declaration at 13:39 on Sunday, the supporting documents were sent through at 14:00 and at 14:05 it was released on the system and the truck was able to proceed to the port. Cruickshank, who was on site during the project’s roll-out, said that with all cases at Sacu border posts now being run through Sars’ sophisticated risk engine, the organisation would be able to target illegitimate trade more effectively and offer greater benefits to legitimate trade.