Zimra makes progress on AYSCUDA

management system.
The introduction of the new system from October last year had resulted in halting of customs clearance operations at most border posts as Zimra failed to implement a smooth change-over.
However, Shipping and Forwarding Association of Zimbabwe (SFAAZ) chief executive officer Mr Joseph Musariri recently told the Herald Business that progress had been made, although more work was still necessary.
“The new system was meant to reduce this turn-around time to a matter of minutes. This has certainly not been achieved although we now have isolated cases of bill of entry declarations that are being cleared in line with industry expectations.
“On a more positive note, Zimra has continued to dialogue with the association and our communication processes have been very good with them, particularly at management/policy level.
“The new system has not been successful as yet but some benefits are being realised,” said Mr Musariri.
Before introduction of the new system Zimra had a promised turnaround time of three hours for bills of entry that were processed without a query being raised, however SFAAZ contends that by and large, it is still taking two to three days to process clearances through Zimra.
ASYCUDA 2.3 was the earliest version to be introduced in Zimbabwe in 1992 and was upgraded to versions 2.5 and 2.7.
ASYCUDA++ later came on board in the form of version 1.15 and 1.18. Since the last quarter of last year, Zimra is rolling out ASYCUDA World version 4.0.21 to over 14 stations with limited success.