WILL GOVERNMENT IMPLEMENT ELCTRONIC CUSTOMS CLEARANCE?

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) headquartered in Lusaka, Zambia, announced this week that it would donate computers to the value of US$100,000 to USD400, 000 to a number of member countries to help in customs administration. Seychelles will be among the five countries earmarked for the donation.

Seychelles has been a member of COMESA since its inception over ten years ago. However, we have not yet acceded to the free trade protocol which requires all member states to remove all restrictions such as customs duties and other impediments to the flow of goods and services between member states. At the last summit in Nairobi earlier this year, which was attended not by president Michel but by Minister Jacquelin Dugasse, the Government promised to accede to the protocol by December 2008.

In spite of the impression given by President Michel that Seychelles is a modern state, the customs service has remained stuck in the pre-independence era as far as clearance of goods are concerned. Customs clearance has remained a paper transaction from beginning to end. As a result, mountains of paper have accumulated at the port and airport. Collating information on trade by statisticians can take months if not years. The National Statistics Bureau has not been able to publish a detailed report on Seychelles international trade in the five years.

Although there has been no definitive study on the efficiency of the present system, almost everyone who has had to clear goods from the port has experienced delays of between seven to fifteen days from the time of arrival of the goods before customs clearance can be obtained at the port. At the international airport one must take three trips back and forth just to collect documents, fill them in, return with them to the customs officer, leave them with the customs officer until the afternoon or the next day and return later to pay the import duty before the goods can be collected. The only solace is that the volume of cargo coming by air is relatively small, so the delay is relatively short.

The decision to house customs officers, whose jobs are simply to process documents rather than inspect goods, at the port and the airport has meant that customers of the service must travel there in order to submit or retrieve documents or pay the duty. It gives a new meaning to the notion of man being at the centre of development.

The computers being donated by the COMESA secretariat will be used to introduce a paperless system of customs processing, one where everything can be done from a computer screen while sitting at one’s desk. It would mean going to the port or airport only to collect the goods. It would release customs officers to spend time on effective inspection to stop illicit cargo rather than shift papers around.

According to the COMESA communiqué announcing the donation of computers, the project involves the implementation of the Automated System for Customs Data and Management (ASYCUDA). The system was developed by the United Nations conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 1981 at a time when personal computers were just starting to be in widespread use. The system which our customs authorities would be able to implement is very sophisticated, but made possible by the processing power of today’s desktop computers.

ASYCUDA is a computerised customs management system which covers most foreign trade procedures. The system handles manifests and customs declarations, accounting procedures, transit and suspense procedures. ASYCUDA generates trade data that can be used for statistical economic analysis.

One of the main objectives of the project, according to COMESA, includes increased trade facilitation, improved efficiency and effectiveness in customs procedures, provision of timely and accurate trade data and the use of international standards. It will enable the government to streamline customs procedures and adopt cohesive strategies that would foster the cargo processing and promote regional trade.

The ASYCUDA system is already being operated in nine other COMESSA countries. Apart form Seychelles the countries that would benefit from the donation are the Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea and Swaziland. The European Commission has provided the financial support for the project.