THE SOUTH AFRICAN ASSOCIATION OF FREIGHT FORWARDERS: WESTERN CAPE

Transcription

1 Circular No. 24/ th August 2017 THE SOUTH AFRICAN ASSOCIATION OF FREIGHT FORWARDERS: WESTERN CAPE 39 Santiago Bay Capricorn, 7945 Cape Town Chairman: B Hanival Vice-Chairman: M Walwyn admin@saaffwesterncape.org.za Contact No Minutes of Executive Committee Meeting held at the Mowbray Golf Club, Raapenberg Road 8 th August 2017 at 12:00pm Present: Basil Hanival (chair) GAC Laser Logistics Zahid Hassan Meihuizen International Peter Meihuizen Meihuizen International Clifford Evans Berry & Donaldson Faldie Kamaar Kinetsu World Express Jean Pool DSV In attendance: Juliet White Independent Admin Apologies: JD van der Merwe BPL Marchelle Young Hellmann Jonathan McDonald Expeditors Mike Walwyn Nexlog 1. Notice of meeting Action Basil opened the meeting at 12:00 pm and welcomed everyone. Apologies were noted. 2. SAAFF Competition Compliance Statement Action SAAFF strictly prohibits any agreement, contract, arrangement, understanding, co-operative or coordinated conduct, practice, or discussions between members, the purpose or effect of which is to directly or indirectly fix a purchase or selling price or any other related trading condition, or to divide markets by allocating customers, suppliers, territories or specific types of goods or services, or to tender collusively. It is mandatory for all members and their representatives to familiarise themselves with SAAFF s written policy on competition compliance which is available on request.

2 ~ 2 ~ 3. Confirmation of the minutes of Exco Meeting held on 11 th July 2017 Action The acceptance of the minutes of the Exco Meeting held on the 11 th July 2017 was proposed by Basil and seconded by Peter. 4. Finance 4.1 Bank Accounts Action Internet accounts, forwarded by Juliet, for Exco are as follows: Current account balance R Investment account balance R July Expense Claim Action The following expense claim for July has been presented for submission to SAAFF National: Secretarial Expenses R8 819,61 July Exco Meeting R1 255,70 Fun Quiz Italian Club Catering R42 185,00 Fun Quiz Sound Hire R3 850,00 Fun Quiz Prizes (R5000) (reflected in Inv #012) Total Claim R ,31 5. Membership Action Basil confirmed that Finex has gone through and they still need a visit from one of the Exco members. Margarett Ann Kaiser has confirmed that LCL has been approved by Mike Walwyn. They have only to confirm payment. 5. Standing Matters 5.1 Customs Matters Action Customs stops have been problematic this week; no exams took place on Thursday last week, resulting in 56 containers in the queue as of Tuesday 8 August. Basil has liaised with SACD and SARS. They are working from 7am to 6pm daily to alleviate the congestion. Under these circumstances, agents need to cooperate with SACD in order to resolve the issue. Clifford said that the problem escalated due to the negligence of SARS, however the blame was shifted directly to agents saying that they were late for exams. Clifford suggested to Basil that they need to do the same to Customs as they did with NRCS and take them to the Standing Committee of Finance. He said that this also needed to be escalated to Jed. Basil said that Mike Walwyn will be meeting with William Fullard (SAAFF s attorney) this week and they will be formulating the letter to the Competition Commission.

3 ~ 3 ~ Basil asked if there has been a noted increase in stops. Faldie and Zahid confirmed that there is an increase according to their statistics. Clifford said that customs needs to speed up the releases after the exams. It is taking 24 hours to release a shipment after an inspection. Customs says they can do turn-around within 3 days but the release is taking 4 days. Faldie said that sometimes they request more literature 24 hours later. Basil said that once the SACD office is up and running it will alleviate a lot of frustration. Clifford said that he went to SACD and was taken to the offices which are empty. Basil said that as of Friday all of the offices have moved to Cowrie Place and the lease has been signed. Henson mentioned that there will be some changes: Wynand Pretorius is now acting Operations Manager and Hubert Jack is his manager. Basil said he will follow-up on the progress via . Zahid mentioned that Jed said he was going to send the legal opinion on the EUR1. That still needs to be sent. Basil asked if anyone has been to the interface to see if SARS have followed through on the promise that they will not remove people until the last client is seen to. The office opens at 07h30 and there is only an 8-minute meeting held in the morning. It was suggested that a mail is sent out to members to follow up on whether this has been successfully implemented. Basil spoke about the DA51 appeals if a letter is written within 90 working days you are supposed to get a reply. Jean said that if it goes past the act s allocated time frame he escalates it in contravention of the SARS act as a service delivery failure. The guides to the dispute resolution rules say that if SARS does not make an appeal decision within the allocated number of days they are to finish the decision within the allocated days. The next step is to escalate it to the SARS operations monitoring office and then to the Tax Ombud. He said that the same process applies to TDNs. During the exco meeting, Hubert Jack called from SARS to say that SACD will accommodate up to 20 containers on Wednesday 9 August, which is a public holiday. Juliet will send out an urgent notice to find out how may many members will be available to book exams on the public holiday in order to alleviate some of the congestion. J White Basil spoke briefly about the agenda items raised in the SARS-SAAFF Management meeting on 19 August The minutes from SARS have been posted on the SAAFF website. 5.2 Maritime Action Clifford spoke on the Port Tariff Application saying that cargo dues on import and export full containers is 7.5%; automotive 5% and bulk tariffs 9%. It is an average of 7.88%. Out of the 7.5% the Port Regulator will probably give about 3 4% again.

4 ~ 4 ~ 5.3 Airfreight Matters Action Nothing to report. 5.4 Perishables Action Basil said that DAFF has released information due for comment on the micro-biological testing on the import of meat. All containers will need to be opened and a sample is taken to a laboratory before they get released. They need a small sample, but the problem is that the container needs to stand until the meat is released. Jean said that it will still need to be put out for public comment before it is published. 6. Training Action Nothing to report. 7. Domestic Matters 7.1 Fun Quiz Update Action The Fun Quiz was well attended with a record 250 members attending. The food was good and everything ran smoothly. The winners are as follows: 1st Prize and the trophy - Maersk 2nd Prize - Robertson Freight 3rd Prize - Bolloré and DSV Industry Prize - TD Shipping Googling of answers is still unfortunately an issue and was pointed out at the quiz. 7.2 Golf Day Action Various Golf Day dates have been proposed at King David Mowbray, Rondebosch and Milnerton golf clubs, however none of the dates are practical as they fall too late in the year. Sean Adriaanse from Megafreight, who has been assisting with the organising of the event, has recommended that we have the golf day in the first quarter of The Exco agreed that this is the best way forward and suggested the end of February SAAFF Luncheon Action Basil asked Geordin-Hill Lewis to be the guest speaker at the next Members Luncheon. He is the Chief of Staff to Musi Maimane. We are awaiting confirmation. The venue will be the same as the previous year, at the Crown Restaurant. The proposed date is 23 November 2017, Thursday. 8. SAAFF National Action Tony D Almeida will be in Cape Town for a follow up New BB-BEE Codes Seminar on the 21 st August Basil said that Tony will need to get permission from Dave Logan first.

5 ~ 5 ~ Clifford said that the new SAAFF website is not as interesting as is was proposed to be. The logo and opening page is all that has changed. There should be a notice board for members to raise daily issues. The menu on the side that categorises the topics by date but is not practical for searching. The Western Cape website was easier to use and it was practical. There is no evidence of any significant change on the new site. 9. General Action Basil said that Incoterms Training is coming up. The attendance so far is very low and may be due to the high cost of the seminar. There is another notice that Juliet will send out to gauge attendance for the 5 th September instead of 31 st August as the training facilitator cannot be expected to fly out for 2 people. The next SARS-SAAFF Management Meeting will take place on 23 August The General Meeting will fall on 31 August Basil thanked everyone for attending and closed the meeting at 1:20pm.