Japanese used car

By Lyse Comins and Independent Foreign Service

South Africa has become the dumping ground for thousands of imported vehicles that leave Japan as “scrap", destined for SADC countries but which find their way on to our roads where they cause major accidents.

In 2004 alone, police recorded that 80 000 vehicles were imported via Durban harbour destined for Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique, Department of Transport motor services manager Sue Grobbelaar said.

Of these, 7 000 were listed “suspect” as stolen vehicles with Interpol.

‘A lot of these dodgy vehicles end up on our roads and are involved in accidents’
Grobbelaar said there was no record to prove that most of these vehicles had ever crossed our borders to reach their final destination, where it is mostly legal for citizens to own second-hand imports.

This emerged after Namibia’s partial ban on the import of Japanese used cars older than five years - an act that has left hundreds of cars ordered by Namibians stranded in Durban.

Referring to the situation on local roads, KwaZulu-Natal Road Traffic Inspectorate John Schnell said South Africa had become a “dumping ground” for vehicles that could not crack roadworthy tests overseas.

“A lot of these dodgy vehicles end up on our roads and are involved in accidents. Some have been imported trucks from America,” Schnell said.

Grobbelaar said drivers of such imports involved in accidents disappeared from the scene of the accident and could not be traced. At least one South African had been left wheelchair bound after an accident at Mooi River, involving an imported second-hand vehicle.

Grobbelaar said it was illegal for South Africans to possess imported second-hand vehicles.

KwaZulu-Natal department of transport MEC Bheki Cele was not available for comment. Grobbelaar confirmed that his department was taking “drastic action” to clamp down on the imports.

“We are going to clamp down on these imports that are illegally travelling on our roads (having being) resold to our public, which can have them taken away because the relevant customs and duties have not been paid,” she said.

Grobbelaar said negotiations had been under way for some time with the department of trade and industry, the Sars, Customs and Excise and Business Against Crime to establish a vehicle testing station at Durban Harbour where vehicles could be checked with Interpol for “street-legalness".

She said the vehicles could not be certified roadworthy as they had not been built to SA standards.

Business Against Crime expert Lee Dutton said a few hundred vehicles had been left stranded in Durban following Namibia’s partial ban on the imports. The ban was effective from January 1.

He said a further 900 in-transit vehicles were stranded in Namibia after a similar ban in Angola.

Apart from South Africa which had been clamping down on imports, the vehicles were killing the second-hand market in the entire SADC region by undermining re-sale values, he said.

Dutton said many imported second-hand luxury vehicles like four-by-fours were stolen overseas in the United Kingdom, Singapore and Hong Kong.

The Namibian Ministry of Trade and Industry said it was banning vehicles older than five years from outside the Southern African Customs Union to stamp out tax evasion, ensure after-sales service for the customer, protect the environment and promote road safety.

Established car dealers with South African links, who had seen a slump in business due to the import of the Japanese “grey cars", had lobbied the Namibian government to put a stop to the import of the cars. Importers of the used cars had pleaded with the government to give them more time to land the cars which had already been ordered.

Vehicles ordered last year by second-hand car dealers and individuals before the ban came into effect have now arrived in Durban. But the vehicles cannot be delivered to Namibia because of the ban. Importers said they stood to loose thousands of rands as the ban caught them “off-guard".

Although established dealers claim that their main concern was to “get the playing field level", there are clear indications of what some in the industry call “a vicious campaign” to discredit those involved and the products they bring into Namibia.

It is claimed that the Namibian government lost millions of rand in value added tax (Vat) due to incorrect declarations of value of these vehicles.

Representatives of the local motor industry have argued that there would be no price difference between imported Japanese cars and locally available used vehicles had the “correct” duties and Vat been paid by the importers of the Asian vehicles, which are said to be cheaper.

A trade and industry department spokesman said the government needed to protect the Namibian business people from fronting for South African middlemen who imported the vehicles from Dubai instead of Japan, and to make sure Namibia does not become a dumping ground for vehicles that were too old and expensive to maintain.

A finance ministry spokesman said the ban on the imports of the used Japanese cars was to protect the public. He said some sellers claimed to use Namibia as a transit point to Angola, but ended up selling the vehicles in Namibia without paying duties.

This article was originally published on page 5 of on January 31, 2005

Pretoria News