A BLUNDER by a customs clearing agent is to blame for the sheftalia crisis, it was revealed yesterday.
The agent accidentally recorded a shipment of the pana pig gut used to wrap the delicacy under `offal’ rather than `fat’ on his clearing forms, the director of the Customs and Excise Department, Andy Trifonides, told the Cyprus Mail.
Trifonides admitted that customs officials would never have reclassified the stomach lining as offal – thus hiking the duty on it by 45 per cent – had the clearing agent not made the mistake.
“One day an importer’s clearing agent recorded pana in another class. The importer then came back to customs and complained because of the higher duty. We decided to look into it and found the second classification was the right one,” Trifonides said.
Having reclassified the pana earlier this month, the department is now adamant the new classification is the one which the imported pig gut should have had all along.
But meat industry sources yesterday said pana was still classified as fat rather than offal in the rest of the EU.
Hundreds of thousands of kilos of the pig’s stomach lining are imported from Denmark every year to satisfy the insatiable local appetite for the barbecued pork morsel.
“Importers objected to the reclassification so we met to discuss the matter. I told them it was a technical issue and suggested we seek the opinion of the EU Commission on the matter,” Trifonides said. “We sent a letter to the EU and they said the second classification (as offal) was correct.”
“The importers’ reaction was that our description of the pana in the letter had been incorrect. I told them I would look at it again, but how could they say our description was not correct when they never saw the letter,” Trifonides said.
However, a meat industry expert, who wished to remain anonymous, begged to differ. “The status quo in the EU is established with the pig gut classified under section 02/09 as fat. Has Cyprus the right to turn round to importers in Cyprus and put them at a disadvantage?” the expert asked.
Importers fear the duty hike will send the price of sheftalia rocketing or, worse, mean they are no longer in a position to compete with the French cosmetics industry for the Danish pana production – leaving our sheftalia unwrapped.
The near 500,000 pigs slaughtered in Cyprus every year are not enough to satisfy the local demand for pana, as each pig produces enough gut for a mere five or six sheftalia.
Kebab shop owners – for whom sheftalia are an indispensable accompaniment to souvlakia pork kebabs for the island’s favourite fast food – are up in arms.
But Trifonides was unmoved by the uproar. “My concern is for correct classification,” he said.
He said it was up to the state to reduce the duty if it considered sheftalia a matter of national importance, but the classification would not be changed.
