The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

Brokers said yesterday that upgrading Customs procedures to an automated system would add greater efficiency to the way they do business, one telling Tribune Business that there were many things the revenue collector had to “come up to speed” on.

The Government is losing $66 million in revenues annually due to inefficiencies at Bahamas Customs alone ,according to a report by the Inter-American Development Bank for the proposed $16.5 million Trade Sector Support Programme, a project that aims to boost trade and enhance revenue collection.

And Wendall Lewis, head of Alliance Customs Brokers, told Tribune Business: “The main thing I guess is for Customs to get automated. Customs, for years, has been trying to have the on-line submission of entries, and because of that my company and several  others have had to upgrade.

“We have been having a lot of hiccups with that. I invested a significant amount of money into that There is still a whole lot of things Customs have to do to come up to speed. This process of taking documents over, waiting two to three days, is antiquated. We have had problems with them losing documents. Being automated will assist in that regard, but they are still automated and yet we still have to take documents over to them.”

Mr Lewis added:”As a company, when you have to spend on something that we expect will make our process easier, you expect results. The client doesn’t want to hear excuses, they just want their goods. There are a lot of challenges in Customs.”

Alric Armbrister, manager of T&A Enterprises , told Tribune Business: “I think they are as efficient as they could be considering what they are working with. I think Customs at some point needs to be totally automated. The manual paperwork needs to be done away with. I think once they arrive at that point you would see things moving more quickly.”

David Humes, of Integral Logistics Brokers, told Tribune Business that Customs was rather efficient given what it had to work with.

“I just do my best to work with what’s presented,” he said. “Customs, to me, functions pretty well given what they have now.

“They supposedly had a programme where one is able to submit entries on line, but it’s not really effective because it’s not user friendly. One of the things that usually happens is they don’t consult the people on the ground. I think a lot of money was wasted in that exercise.”