Want to play a word game? How many five-letter words can you make with the letters I, T, A and C in any position? If you are up for the challenge, it might well help to improve your Wordle® skills. Your challenge is to make 16 five-letter words.

If you do not want to be distracted, simply ignore, and if you want to cheat, then just cast your eyes to the end of this article.

With the middle of the year fast approaching and with tariffs currently all the rage – the international rage, to be exact – it feels appropriate to offer a reminder of the existence of the International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (Itac). An appropriate place to start is its mandate, vision, mission and core values.

Itac’s mandate is to foster economic growth and development to raise incomes and promote investment and employment in South Africa and within the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) by establishing an efficient and effective system for the administration of international trade, subject to the International Trade Administration Act (ITA) of 2002, which came into force on June 1, 2003, and the Sacu Agreement.

The commission’s core functions are customs tariff investigations, trade remedies and import and export control. Its commissioners meet once a month to evaluate investigations conducted by its investigators and make recommendations to the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition. The ITA Act provides for a full-time chief commissioner, a deputy chief commissioner and a maximum of ten commissioners who can be appointed to serve on a part-time basis. The commissioners come from diverse backgrounds, including agriculture, business, economics, international trade law, and labour.

Itac’s vision is to be an institution of excellence in international trade administration, enhancing economic growth and development.

Its mission is to create an enabling environment for fair trade through efficient and effective administration of its trade instruments, and to provide technical advice to the Economic Development Department and the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (dtic).

Itac is guided by the following set of core values: integrity, trust, accountability and commitment. Is it coincidental that the first letters of each core value spell the institution’s name?

To deliver on its mandate, vision, mission and core values, Itac has three units: the Tariff Investigations Unit, the Trade Remedies Unit, and the Import and Export Control Unit.

The objectives of the Tariff Investigations Unit are to promote, in a complementary manner, domestic production, job retention and creation, and international competitiveness. This is done by investigating applications for rebates and drawback permits and for tariff relief and support. The application process is rigorous and evidence based, and includes extensive research, verification, preparation of written submissions and assessment of the merits of the applications.

The Trade Remedies Unit administers trade remedy instruments through investigation of alleged dumping, subsidised imports and any surge in imports into the Sacu bloc, in accordance with domestic legislation and consistent with the World Trade Organisation’s rules. These instruments are a critical government intervention to retain jobs and promote investment.

The import and export control measures are essentially applied to enforce health, environmental, safety and technical standards that arise from domestic laws and international agreements, such as the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, and the UN Convention Against the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.

The information for this article was obtained from Itac’s 19-page brochure. Although the date of publication is not stated, it still refers to the Minister of Trade and industry, so it is safe to assume it predates the dtic, which was established in May 2019.

For honing your Wordle® skills, the words are actin, aitch, antic, artic, attic, cacti, cital, coati, diact, dicta, ictal, tacit, tical, ticca, triac, and vatic.