Hon Speaker, let me try to provide some clarity on some of the things that the hon Mufamadi was trying to get across. Some members might not know this, but for the past 36 years we have had an inland port in Gauteng, called City Deep. It has always allowed a foreign exporter to consign goods to Johannesburg as a final destination. A shipping line takes responsibility for the goods all the way until they are cleared at City Deep. The existence of City Deep lowers the cost of doing business, eases the burden on our ports, and ensures the easy movement of goods to neighbouring countries to our north.
The Bills before us today do many good things to update our customs processes, but some of the things they do risk harming the status of City Deep as a place that goods can travel to in order to be cleared. This, I'm sure you will agree, could have a negative impact on trade and economic growth.
The changes have been made as part of Sars' efforts to tackle fraud and illegal imports. Let me be clear, the DA supports efforts to tackle these things, but we have to balance enforcement with the benefits of free trade.
In the committee it was always treated as a given that the existence of inland ports like City Deep contributes to customs fraud, but the committee never interrogated this fact. What is more, Sars never commissioned a regulatory impact assessment on these Bills, and I think you'll see that the impacts can be quite severe.
What they are doing is to change the current system, where goods are allowed to travel on a manifest all the way to City Deep where the manifest terminates, to a new system where you as an importer have to submit a clearance declaration three days before goods arrive at an actual ocean port like Durban or Cape Town. It is not clear that this new system is the best way to stop customs fraud.
Furthermore, requiring exporters to relinquish control at the first port of entry might threaten trade flows and economic growth, particularly in Gauteng and in the landlocked countries to our north.
Also, all members will know only too well the delays and congestion we already have at ports like Durban, to say nothing of the question of security for containers that may now no longer proceed seamlessly to Johannesburg.
The DA welcomed the fall-back provision in the Customs Control Bill. It was inserted late in the day, but it allows our system to revert to the old system if the new one does not work. We supported this amendment.
However, we also proposed eight other amendments to the Customs Control Bill to try to retain the concept of an inland port in the legislation. Each of our amendments was voted down by the ANC. However, we were supported in these amendments by Business Unity SA, and I believe that that organisation is still concerned about a potential negative effect on the economy from these Bills.
The DA also tabled an amendment to the Customs and Excise Amendment Bill to retain the section that allows carriers to deliver containers to inland ports under bond. That proposal was also outvoted by the ANC members.
The bottom line is that the committee did not adequately interrogate the Bills and that they were rushed through, despite their having been under consideration since 2007. Let me tell you a little about why I say they were rushed.
On 4 February this year, Sars took the committee through a PowerPoint presentation on the Bills. They did not provide us with their written response to the issues raised in the public hearings, nor did they present their final draft amendments to the Bills. We had to wait till the next morning.
At 9:30 the next day, 5 February, these three documents as well as Sars' responses to the public hearings and their final proposals were tabled. The Sars response document is 20 pages long. They have nine amendments to clauses in the Customs and Excise Amendment Bill and 90 amendments to the Customs Control Bill.
I am sure that members will agree that ordinarily a committee should have a full day for members to process these changes and to get their heads around them, but when I asked the chair for a one hour break - one hour! - to process all of these pages, that request was denied, and at 9:45 we moved immediately into a line-by-line processing of the Bills without any idea of what Sars' changes were.
Let me recap. Sars presented their final amendments to the Bills and the memo that described them to the committee minutes before that committee went through the Bill line by line. We had no time to consider the amendments and were forced to respond in the moment, despite our request to the chair to allow a time-out. If we act like this, then our committees are simply rubber stamps for the executive. Hon Speaker, is this the way we should be legislating in Parliament? I'm sure that members on both sides of the House will agree that it is not.
We object to the Customs Control Bill and the Customs and Excise Amendment Bill because, firstly, they have a potentially detrimental effect on trade and growth and, secondly, because the Standing Committee on Finance rammed them through before the committee could fully understand the changes made to 99 clauses at the eleventh hour.
Trade is the lifeblood of our economy and with growth coming in at below 1,9% last year, it's clear we need to boost trade. Any moves we make that could compromise it must be stopped. That is why the DA does not support two out of these three Bills. [Applause.]