Concern that it’s an act of victimisation
LEONARD NEILL
TRAMON AIR, a Lanseria-based airline which operates its own passenger and freighter aircraft, faces a possible operational shut-down as a result of what director Daniel Coetzer calls ‘sheer harassment by customs officials.’
“They have removed my working documents and badgered my staff to such an extent they are reluctant to carry on working,” he says. “The officials, who have walked into my offices every second or third day for the past month, launched such a verbal assault on my senior accountant last week that she collapsed in tears and I had to take her to a doctor for treatment.
“If this is the way in which they intend cleaning up any possibility of corruption in the airline cargo industry, they are going further than they might ever have anticipated. “In the past two years I have paid SARS more than R2million in taxes. My company has a good name in the industry and there isn’t a shade of doubt about any of our business transactions.
“But they have removed all of my files, even taking documents that show where I purchase my stationery. I can’t even pay my bills at present because all the accounts have been removed. I’m merely sending payments to those suppliers who are e-mailing me their accounts.”
Verbal attack
Coetzer claims the trouble started almost immediately after he had launched a verbal attack on the Department of Transport for issuing operating permits to a group of Russian freighters which he could prove had not been properly licensed to fly.
“I have never had a problem in the past with Customs, SARS or the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). My standing with them has always been of the top order. But the manner in which my company and its workers are being suddenly harassed has left me no alternative but to seek legal advice in order to get a court order to recover the documents and restrict the officials from marching into my offices.
“Strangely enough their major interest appears to be documents involving imports, but we are primarily export carriers and have handled only 10 imported items in the past two years, and these were spare parts.
“All the documents covering these were in the files they took, yet they keep calling on me with a demand that I supply the documents to them.
“I am satisfied we have done nothing wrong.”
