SACTWU suspends anti-illegal imports protests

Cape Town (SA) – The Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU) has suspended its planned series of protests outside SA Revenue Services (SARS) offices “intended to demonstrate our extreme unhappiness with the crisis of illegal imports flooding into South Africa which SARS has stopped effectively policing over the past two years or so”, according to a release from general secretary Andre Kriel.

        SACTWU held a protest outside the SARS head office in Pretoria last Friday, and had planned another 18 protests outside regional and branch offices around the country, as well as at harbours and other ports of entry, up to the end of March.
        It has suspended the campaign pending a meeting with SARS on April 12.

        SACTWU believes up to R4 billion worth of import duties on clothing and footwear imports from China are lost annually because SARS is not policing imports effectively.