The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE Tribune Business Reporter nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net THE Bahamas is 'far behind' the world when it comes to Customs procedures, a broker yesterday telling Tribune Business: "I wouldn't hold my breath" over planned reforms. Forrester Carroll, managing director of Expert Customs Brokers in Freeport, told Tribune Business: "The clearing of goods is the main part of what Customs does. We have shipments that could be on the dock for a week to 10 working days, and that's ridiculous in this modern world. It means that the merchants can't get it on the shelf. In an importing nation where we import everything we consume, it's ridiculous and we seem to be content with this antiquated system we have." An Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) report on a proposed $16.5 million project to upgrade Customs, said the Department's reliance on outdated information technology and manual systems created the opportunity for fraud, data entry errors and the wrong rate of duty to be applied, all of which cost the Government revenue. This, the IDB added, also often resulted in duty exemptions being incorrectly applied, while handicapping the private sector in impeding the free-flow of physical goods into and out of the Bahamas. Mr Carroll said: "The system had its place in times past, but in today's technological world we need to get further than we are, and I think we are probably the most backward. Barbados and the rest of them are way ahead of us in this technology. We are far behind. "I'm not impressed, and I wouldn't hold my breath that we would get where we ought to be real soon. We were supposed to be upgraded two years ago now. We had a meeting two years ago, I think, and it was supposed to be upgraded the following year. Right now we are a year or two behind, and I haven't heard or seen anything. I don't know how far they have gone in getting it done, and even then you're going to have a dry run for six months to a year to get all of the bugs out of the system." Mr Carroll said that under the new system, every business would essentially have to go through a broker. He added: "What they are trying to do with the paperwork is set up where you will essentially have to go through a Customs broker. Right now you have an option, but when this thing is set up properly, importers will have to go through a broker. "The bigger companies have brokers on staff. The system will enable us to prepare the Customs entries on hand, send them directly to Customs and when they are ready we go down and pay. It is supposed to reduce the time and all the paperwork. I don't know how long it's going to take for us to get there because we have been so slow in the past, and we have wasted so much money over the years trying to get here with this computer system. I guess that is where they want to get. We, in our own company, have already upgraded the hardware to accommodate doing it the modern way."