Consolidated transit cargo on the Trans-Kalahari Corridor TKC continues to be affected by a Unique Consignment Reference UCR requirement implemented by the Botswana Unified Revenue Service Burs, but Easy Clear says it has a solution.
The digital cargo declaration agencys general manager, Michael Henning, told Freight News they had successfully piloted an automated populating service that avoided the painstaking and expensive process of listing each item travelling through Botswana on the TKC.
He explained that, whereas removal-in-transit RIT cargo between South Africa and Namibia could previously pass through the Skilpadshek and Buitepos borders with one declaration for consol loads, UCR had changed that.
Even though customs integration between Burs and its peer tax authorities enabled the requirement, it still caused delays compared with consol loads being regarded as one consignment.
Henning said when the Limpopo River flooded earlier this year, closing the Groblersbrug border on the Copperbelt route north and causing a ripple effect of compound cargo forced to alternative borders, consol operators were heavily impacted on the TKC.
Although the southern way through the Northern Cape is much longer, many cross-border transporters preferred to bypass Botswana by using the Nakop-Ariamsvlei border crossing between South Africa and Namibia.
It became a real headache as a result of departing from single consolidated manifests, he said.
When Burs suffered system downtime, it was worse, turning the once free-flowing TKC into a chokepoint as the borders bottlenecked and the truck parks filled up, said Henning.
Earlier this year private-sector stakeholders, realising that Burs wasnt going to backtrack on UCR, sought to resolve impediments with its public-sector peers, at which point Easy Clear looked at basing innovation on existing efficiencies, Henning said.
We can alreadyprovide electronic files for countries that make use of Asy World. The declaration protocol based on the Automated System for Customs Data in the Sacu region.
So we looked at how we can import data in such a way that it reduces the amount of manual capturing and risk on behalf of Burs.
Without a secure, seamless, speeded up system, it means agents in Botswana have to capture everything, adding to cost, waiting time and causing frustration among RIT cargo clients.
Henning said the automated multiple entry service for URC declaration was piloted through two of Easy Clears clients with good results and positive feedback.
Were ready to roll it out to other consol clients.
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