NRCS INSPECTION
A NRCS Inspection in South Africa refers to the checks conducted by the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications (NRCS) to ensure that products and services meet the mandatory safety, quality, and environmental standards set by the government. The NRCS's mandate includes promoting public health and safety, environmental protection, and ensuring fair trade.
Don’t have your container stopped for NRCS inspection – unless you have the correct LOAs on hand. They can legally confiscate your goods.
The costs of stopping your container and unpacking it? – about R25 000. It can take at least 4 months (and up to 6 months) for an LOA to be processed, and in that time you will be paying storage fees at an approved customs warehouse, which can easily run to R500 a day.
Even once the LOA is acquired, it can take a month to get your embargoed goods released by NRCS.
There is no appeal process, no NRCS contact centre. Documents have to be correct (to the NRCS [IEC] standards) or they will be rejected and you will have to start the whole process again.
Our costs for managing the process will range from R7500 to R15000 depending on complexity.
Once your product has an LOA, you will be able to put pressure on retail and online stores to have items without an LOA removed, and get a jump on competitors.