Business Day on 01 December 2016 reported that “Importers’ paperwork headache will not ease before next year”. According to the article, Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies informed Parliament’s trade and industry committee that the backlog of National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications (NRCS) Letters of Authority (LoA) applications older than 120 calendar days would be abolished only by end-March 2017. This despite an undertaking given to the committee that this would be accomplished by mid-November 2016. As at 30 October 2016, the “long-overdue applications” stood at 1 615.
Readers will recall that the NRCS LoA is required to by importers to enable them to have their goods released by Customs. Apparently, there are importers that have been waiting for months to get the necessary clearance and during this time have had to pay large sums for the storage of their goods.