Industry is waiting with bated breath for the roll-out of Registration, Licensing and Accreditation (RLA) under the New Customs Act Programme (NCAP). According to several customs experts contacted by FTW this will most likely take place in September this year. “It is a very significant and important step forward in NCAP,” said one agent. “It is also the first step in doing away with the mountain of documents required by customs when companies register with the South African Revenue Service (Sars). “We will no longer be required to queue with heaps of paperwork every year. This process will now be completely online, far more user-friendly and less costly for business,” he said. At a port meeting held in Cape Town recently several agents and forwarders said the streamlining of RLA could not come soon enough. “In Cape Town only a handful of applications are dealt with in December through the manual process per day. One can easily arrive only to be told they have handled the quota for the day. It is a process that can take days on end, not to mention the time involved putting together the documentation that is required,” an agent said. Industry is waiting for workshops for more clarity on the RLA programme, what it entails and when the system will be fully up and running. In the meantime, there has been a delay in the declaration processing system (DPS) under the NCAP. A letter from the revenue authority stated that during previous engagements with trade, Sars had communicated its intention to roll out new declaration types as well as simplified declarations. The pilot has since been delayed to allow for related processes and amendments to the enabling legislation to be completed. According to one customs expert the DPS was very significant as it would see all concessions fall away once implemented. “It will have an impact on the wine and perishable industries in particular as entries are often only passed once the export has taken place. This will no longer be allowed. Either you will have to pass a provisional export declaration or an incomplete declaration followed by a supplementary declaration five days later.” According to a spokesman for Sars the authority was currently focusing its attention on ensuring that the new declaration types were successfully finalised for effective use by traders.
