Dear chamber member (and non-chamber member),

For several years now Chambers in South Africa have been issuing Certificates of Origin for the exporting business Community. The authority
to issue these certificates was negotiated for chambers by SACCI and a Memorandum Of Understanding entered into with the Department of Trade and Industry in this regard.

The reality is that both SARS Customs and DIRCO (Department of International Relations and Cooperation) have an interest in this regard and SACCI has interacted with these government offices over the years as the custodian of this arrangement.

In order to enable chambers to issue these certificates, SACCI was, as a condition for the issuing of Certificates of Origin (COO’s), required to accredit the issuing chambers (as an expectation from South African government as well as the WTO) to this end-

1. As South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI) is the National Accrediting Organisation, only chambers accredited by SACCI are
entitled and authorised to issue COO’s.

2. SACCI authorises the training and accreditation for all chambers and non-chambers in South Africa.

3. Training in the issuing of COO’s are standardized and carried out by Mrs Linda Bird on behalf of SACCI as the certified ICC Paris trainer in South Africa (done under the auspices of SACCI).

4. A new accreditation chain certificate template will be issued to compliant chambers, with the SACCI and ICC Accreditation Chain logos. The
relevant chamber will be required to add its own logo in the bottom left of the new certificates.

5. All issuing chambers will be required to supply SACCI with specimen signatures as well as the format of the certificates issued. This is required in respect of condition set down by DTI /DIRCO and the WTO

6. SACCI is obliged to conduct COO audits on all issuing chambers in accordance with the guideline requirements of the DTI/DIRCO/WTO (to ensure compliance with current policies and practices and that these are in line with international best practices)- initially this is expected to take place twice yearly.

7. To initiate this process, we require all issuing chambers to supply SACCI with the annual number of certificates issued by your chamber for
2018. This is required by DTI and the WTO process. We will require this twice a year, but at inception, we will be supplying the 2018 annual figure for South Africa.

SACCI has also been approached by other African chambers to lobby their respective governments to allow their national chambers to manage the issuance of COO by local chambers.

In closing, concerns have been raised and directed at SACCI about the rising practice of fraudulent Certificates of Origin being issued in South Africa and used to extort importers of their funds. In effect, SACCI has been put under pressure to tighten controls over the issuing of certificates and this applies also to non-compliant chambers. A copy of such a certificate is attached herewith. SACCI does intend to open a criminal case against the people behind this activity.

All issuing chambers are requested to supply their certificate of origin numbers issued for 2018 to SACCI by the close of business Wednesday, 13th February, 2019.

Kind Regards
Alan Mukoki
Office of the CEO
Chief Executive Officer

South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI)
Tel: +27 11 446 3800
Cel: +27 82 551 1159
Fax: 086 549 2662
Email: [email protected]