Sinopia News Top

Ethiopia to Draft Directive Penalizing Tardy Importers

The Ethiopian Maritime Affairs Authority has designed a draft directive to penalize importers who are slow in processing their goods after arrival at ports. The directive will punish importers who fail to move their goods within 45 days of arrival.

If enacted the new directive will apply to goods transported through both uni-modal and multi-modal transport systems. The maritime authority has sent the proposed directive to the Ministry of Transport for comment before implementation.

The authority had expected to implement the directive at the beginning of the previous month but had to take longer to ensure that all parties involved had an awareness of the duties and responsibilities entailed by the directive. The authority was thus holding discussions with the Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority, the Ethiopian Shipping Lines & Logistic Service Enterprise, and the National Bank of Ethiopia.

The ESLSE which is in charge of notifying customers of arrivals will be in charge of notifying the EMMA of customers who fail to clear their imports within a week after the final date of the allocated time. The EMMA will put out a public notice for the tardy importer before sending on the details of the customer to the central bank.

The central will black list the customer for future requests to facilitate a Letter of Credit for an undisclosed period of time according to the draft directive.

Source: Fortune