Persuading public-sector negotiators to keep the SA Revenue Service (Sars) out of the Border Management Authority (BMA) was yesterday hailed as a triumph for the transport industry but it’s a bitter-sweet victory, logistician and supply-chain expert Louise Wiggett has said.
Speaking at the Operations Conference 2020 held by the Road Freight Association, the managing director of Global Trade Solution said industry had welcomed the news that the integrity and independence of the tax authority would remain intact.
Only time will tell though how Sars is going to function alongside the new authority which was conceived back in 2013 to merge some seven different border-management departments into one entity.
In addition, questions have been raised over the possible efficacy of an Inter-Ministerial Consultative Committee (IMCC) created to thrash out issues from within the BMA, but with one worrying omission at the table – Sars.
Said Wiggett: “How effective is this committee really going to be if the tax authority does not sit on the highest level of the IMCC but all the other departments do?”
Considering the congestion South Africa’s borders have experienced over the past few months, especially as Covid-19 disruption exacerbated the disconnect between border departments, there are fears that Sars’ independence from the BMA could come at a cost.
“The concern is how they are going to cooperate with Sars if the authority is not in the main committee.”
These issues, Wiggett emphasised, should really be explored for the sake of industry’s need to better understand the coordination between Sars and the BMA. “Who is really the boss?”
