Greetings. Its been an awful long time since I posted a message. There are several reasons for this, and perhaps I ought to explain myself since a blog is meant to provide its readers regular updates and insights. My sincere apologies to those of you who followed “What Happened to the Portcullis?” regularly up until a few months ago. Essentially, my original blog site at URL: http://mike-customs.blogspot.com/ suffered some significant technical glitches preventing me from being able to write my fortnightly posts. For the moment I have left it available, but will shortly discontinue it as I now have found a more reliable service provider. I have managed to copy over all the posts and pages to this site, so you will not miss anything.

I’m hoping that I can renew my credibility and viewership and that this site will remain an unbiased source of information to you – loyal servant of the state or ardent trader, operator, practitioner, service provider, as you may be.

The recent months have indeed been most ardous and tense with significant developments occuring in the Customs Modernisation space (here in South Africa), with the preparation of guides, booklets and training materials. Many of you will have attended recent training seminars on the new customs procedures. Service providers on the other hand have had their hands full in compiling enhancements to their customs computer software and support services to the trade.

Inside SARS, work on the upgrade of ‘legacy’ systems is peaking with the impending launch of Phase 1 of the programme – in November 2010. Simultaneous to this, the new integrated business solution, operational and policy developments continue unabated in anticipation of the new legal dispensation to be ushered in with the new Customs Act in 2011.

Aside from this, I’m glad to be operational again.