The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Grand Bahama businesses yesterday asserted that cross-border commerce is in an “unsustainable” situation with Customs’ system for the electronic clearance of goods inoperable for more than three weeks.

Antoine Brooks, managing director of Island Traders Shop & Ship, told Tribune Business yesterday that his and other companies cannot continue clearing goods manually until September as a result of the Electronic Customs Automated Services (eCAS) system being down.

It is supposed to be replaced then by Customs’ Electronic Single Window (ESW), or Click2Clear system, which has been installed elsewhere throughout The Bahamas. Mr Brooks suggested this was why the eCas system remained down, with Customs seemingly in no rush to fix it (see article on Page 1B).

“They’re telling us we have to do manual entries and, for persons like me, couriers and the larger stores, it’s going to be really difficult,” he added. While he has been able to clear goods under his Freeport bond, Mr Brooks said: “I’m willing to pay the outstanding duties. If need be, with the eCas system, you can put the entries in but you just can’t process them.

Manual

“It’s real frustrating. Customs is not giving us any updates and they’re not telling us anything. It just seems like we are going to have to do manual entries from what everyone is telling me until September when they launch the new system.”

The Click2Clear system was supposed to have been implemented on Grand Bahama on July 1, but this was postponed until September 2021 amid fears that the demands for monthly bonded goods sales reports from Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA) licencees would violate both the Hawksbill Creek Agreement, Freeport’s founding treaty, and previous Supreme Court rulings.

Mr Brooks added: “September is what everybody is saying.

“A customs officer also told me that the license for the eCas system had expired, but they later retracted it and said that the system is just down and it is just a server problem.

“We can actually log into the eCas system; before we couldn’t even log in.” Mr Brooks said that if it were a server problem, persons would not have been able to log on to the system at all.

He added: “Customs came to the public and told us eCas was up and it is running, but we still can’t do anything. You can do half of the stuff, but when it comes to actually finishing the work where you can actually print something, you just can’t do it.

“I’m frustrated. I’ve called everybody and nobody seems to have any answers. There is an association that was supposed to meet with the Customs department last week, but that meeting was cancelled for a time today.”

Tony Adderely, managing director of Expert Customs Brokers, said everything is still “status quo” from the time that the eCas system went down two weeks ago. He added: “They’re doing the best they can, but the system is not fully restored.”

Understanding that meetings are to be held today on the matter, Mr Adderley said: “Maybe the Chamber of Commerce may be involved. Hopefully we can get it sorted out and we can get back to normal.”