Shipping agents seek import ban clarification

Lovemore Zigara Midlands Correspondent
THE Shipping and Forwarding Agents Association of Zimbabwe (SFAAZ) has called on the Ministry of Industry and Commerce to clarify the law banning the importation of certain products into the country arguing that the piece of legislation was ambiguous and prejudicing businesses.

Statutory Instrument (SI) 126 of 2014 imposed a ban on certain products being imported such as farm produce, milk, biscuits, plastic bags, cement and yeast among others as the government sought to protect local industry and encourage growth of the manufacturing sector.

However, SFAAZ chief executive officer, Joseph Musariri accuses revenue collector, Zimra, of wrongly interpreting the law by imposing a blanket ban on plastic bags saying under the said piece of legislation, only plastic bags of polymers were restricted from entering the country’s borders.

“The SI has issues that the Ministry (of Industry and Commerce) and Zimra haven’t yet addressed and these issues are prejudicing industry,” said Musariri during a meeting in Gweru last week.

“The first issue is to do with the interpretation of that instrument because it isn’t clear what the ministry intended to control. In our view, take for instance plastic bags, the legislation controls plastic bags of polymers but Zimra has gone further to broadly interpret that legislation and included other goods of those tariff headings, which aren’t plastic bags of polymers.”

Musariri said SFAAZ has made submissions to the Ministry of Industry to come up with a clear SI, which gives specifications on banned items.

He said some of the goods covered under the SI such as conveyor belts and rubber hoses were not locally manufactured, a situation he said has resulted in some companies losing production hours due to the shortage of such spares.

Musariri also called on Zimra to immediately lift a $2,000 flat fee for the declaration of goods in the absence of an import licence saying such moves have caused unnecessary delays in clearing of goods.