The Association of Meat Importers and Exporters (AMIE) South Africa has filed court papers to set aside a decision by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (Daff) to implement acrossthe-board testing on all raw frozen meat imports entering South African ports. Since the new food safety measures were introduced 21 months ago (April 2015), turnaround time for clearance at the port of Durban has gone from an average of four to seven days to anything from 14 to 30 days. This was because Daff lacked the capacity to perform the 1 000% increase in testing required, said CEO of Amie SA, David Wolpert. “Importers are now incurring huge demurrage and storage costs – running into millions of rands – as a result of the delays,” he told FTW, adding that this put additional pressure on the rest of the cold supply chain. “Aside from the increased risks to the integrity of the cold chain, other logistics services are impacted, with trucks sometimes waiting for days for their cargo,” Wolpert pointed out. The Port of Durban alone receives an average of 1 600 to 2 000 containers of raw frozen meat products per month – about 70% of South Africa’s total imports – and Wolpert said Daff officials simply did not have the staff numbers needed to conduct the tests within a reasonable amount of time. Furthermore, he believes Daff has not provided enough scientific proof that the tests are necessary. “We of course would never condone the release of contaminated meat and support all measures necessary to ensure high standards of health and safety but we know that random testing and sampling – as was the case until the new measures were introduced – complied with South Africa’s international trade obligations,” said Wolpert. He said Daff was working with AMIE – in fact AMIE formed a working group with eight executives from Daff last month – to address the issue. “We have extended the court date by five weeks (January 22) to give them time to respond and would even be open to another extension if need be.” He added that Daff had communicated to AMIE that it was open to working with the industry on finding solutions. “We are negotiating with them around more staff appointments and infrastructure development but of course factors such as cost will play a role,” he said. A spokesperson for Daff told FTW the department was aware of the court filing and conceded that there were capacity issues around the testing of meat imports. “We are working with all stakeholders to find a mutually beneficial solution,” she said.
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Importers are now incurring huge demurrage charges. – David Wolpert
