A member of the vehicle import industry is so frustrated at delays caused by biosecurity checks, she has launched a parliamentary petition.
Petition organiser Lisa Witchman is co-director of Rocket Freight NZ, which has a dedicated vehicle shipping division, Willship International.
Witchman decided to launch the petition after she says the Ministry for Primary Industries increased the wait time for processing documents related to used goods from 48 hours to 10 days – a claim the ministry strongly denies.
The ministry says it aims to turnaround biosecurity clearances in 72 hours, not 48, and current processing times are closer to five or six days, not 10.
However, Witchman, who puts the delays down to the brown mamorated stink bug problem and other ongoing quarantine issues, says the costs are mounting up.
“The delay in processing means customers are being hit with large storage bills because of this.
It is stressful for everyone, and a total waste of money.
MPI are taking longer and longer to process documents, are difficult to deal with, and take no responsibility for the results of this.
“I am hoping to get some acknowledgement of the problem [from the petition], and in a perfect world the end result of enforcing timelines.
“I would like to think that the government can take some responsibility of one of their departments and bring in some kind of processing standard to be met by either employing additional staff or providing better in-house systems.”
She’s hoping to get 2500 signatures on the petition, which closes on March 31.At publication time the petition had 456 signatures.
The Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders Association (CBAFF) echoed some of Witchman’s frustrations in a recent update to members.
“We have been advised that MPI is a zero-tolerance environment and interventions in the trade area will become more extreme.
“Despite offering every assistance and making suggestions for queue improvements, most are considered unworkable with what appears to be an archaic system.”
An MPI spokesman says delays have been due to very high cargo volumes and new importing requirements related to the brown marmorated stink bug.
“There may well be delays if we require additional information after receiving incorrect or incomplete documents.
We regularly remind industry that documents need to be submitted in full for us to process their clearance applications.”
Several measures have recently been introduced to reduce delays, the spokesman says.
“For one, we have new staff on board and are in the process of recruiting more.
By the time we finish this next recruitment, we will have around 80% more staff than we have now.
“We have also introduced a new queue for processing cargo coming from Australia, which is reducing some of the pressure.
“Under New Zealand current rules, importers and shippers are responsible for ensuring that cargo is free of biosecurity contaminates and that full and correct information is submitted to facilitate clearance.”
Despite those measures set to improve handling times, MPI says it doesn’t hand out compensation for inspection delays.
As for the parliamentary petition, the MPI spokesman says his organisation is “aware of it”.
“We understand it has been organised by an individual rather than an industry body.
Overall, we have a very good relationship with industry.”
