Costly new toy

REGARDING “New container scanner to be smugglers’ nemesis” (Cape Times, July 23). Not only might this acquisition be the “smugglers’ nemesis”, it certainly causes a great deal of confusion, delay and cost to those who import their goods without the intention of cheating poor Sars out of its extreme tariff rates.

We are importing safety products on a regular basis and should be known to Sars as non-smugglers as many containers previously had been unpacked and found to be in order.

Some two weeks ago, we fell victim to the new scanner. One of our containers got stopped for scanning. Once the scan was completed without finding anything, customs delayed the release further by ordering a complete unpack of the container, which took another day. All in all, release of the container was delayed by 3 days. The cost for this, including demurrage charges payable to the shipping company for the delayed return of the empty container came to about R7 000 for which we were liable.

It appears to be highly unfair that we should pay for the scan, the unpack and the demurrage when all customs declarations proved to be correct and no contraband or other illicit things were found inside the container.

Why, when the scanner was installed last month, were there just 196 containers scanned since, with a success rate of 12, resulting in the recovery of R62 828 in duties and VAT?

The bottom line seems to be that many millions of taxpayer’s money was wasted to give the authorities a new toy to play with in the most inefficient way. Axel Zoelzer