Shipping containers stacked at Port Botany in Sydney on October 26. Problems with a new Australian Customs computer system have caused major backlogs at Australian ports and airports with a representative of ship owners and shipping agents saying agricultural exports could be seriously affected as well as importers. - REUTERS
THE FOLLOWING is an edited version of the presentation by Audrey Marks-Dunstan, Paymaster Managing Director, at the Caribbean Association of Customs Brokers Conference at the Sunset Jamaica Grande Resort in Ocho Rios, last month.
ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001... now infamously known as 9/11 ... the world changed forever. With that one single act of terrorism ... the global status quo was radically and irrevocably altered.
Among the areas hardest hit are those of travel and trade. This has forced the creation of a new customs environment throughout the world ... including the Caribbean.
While we may not have been able to foretell the events of 9/11 or their global impact ... over 40 years ago, Jamaica's national hero, the Rt. Honourable Norman Washington Manley in his 1961 budget speech ... made reference to a Caribbean "customs union", noting that the "forces of trade and commerce and the trend of the world", would make this not only an imperative but "an advantage to Jamaica" and by extension the rest of the region.
OVERNIGHT
What years of reasonable debate could not achieve was accomplished virtually overnight, post 9/11. As nation states, we have all been compelled to individually and collectively re-examine how we do business in a world where rapid and sometimes unexpected change is the only constant. Suddenly, the spotlight is turned more fully on our ports and the important role that they play, not only in facilitating travel and trade, but also in helping to enhance security.
The latter is of critical importance to economically- challenged territories like ours.
We recognise customs and custom workers for among other things, enforcing trade agreements, collecting revenue, intercepting contraband and curtailing narcotics trafficking and arms smuggling. These have assumed renewed importance in recent times, both globally and regionally.
With over 26.2 million metric tonnes of cargo handled at Jamaica's ports in 2004, and Jamaica being only one of the region's territories, I am sure that it is easy to see the connection, the challenges and the implications.
The Caribbean is developing the unenviable reputation as an important trans-shipment point for narcotics. Billions of dollars worth of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs have been smuggled to and through our territory over the years. I need not elaborate on the impact that illegal firearms have had in a country and a region which does not formally manufacture them.
While drastic measures have been and continue to be employed by regional governments to curtail these problems, and that with some success, there is much more that needs to be done to plug the holes through which narcotics and illegal firearms now gain both entry and exit from our territory. The threat that these pose, particularly to our young people, our social structures and our economy, is obvious.
STATISTICS
Just look at the tourism statistics in affected countries like Jamaica, which could attract significantly more tourists and provide far more employment than it now does.
And herein lies the dilemma, because while there is this understanding of the customs workers role to be more vigilant, we cannot allow legitimate productive activities to fall prey to beauracracy without accountability!
So you may ask the question, how does this affect customs brokers and freight forwarders within CARICOM since they are not directly employed to government? The answer is, despite the observation that 'customs agencies do not have the political power to impose rules, they carry them out.'
Customs agencies may not make the rules but they certainly have the power to lobby for changes that will lead to the modernisation of the customs department and customs procedures. Change that will curtail inefficiency which, according to information on CACUB's website, "imposes a significant tax, hidden but very real, on consumers and traders - taxes whose "revenues" are not realised by government, but rather comprise a dead waste to the economy."
Here is inefficiency which benefits no-one, since it is estimated that "border formalities, such as customs clearance procedures increase the value of goods by seven to 10 per cent."
Customs agencies and freight forwarders must play an even more critical role in helping to minimise and eventually eliminate the bureaucratic red tape that leads to waste and ultimately contribute to economic stagnation.
With the advent of the CSME (Caribbean Single Market and Economy) must come not only a reform of customs but also a reform of the agencies that play such a vital role in trade facilitation and economic development.
With joint legislation must come a commitment to improved effectiveness and efficiency for the benefit of the entire region.
The Rt. Hon. Owen Arthur , through his many discourses on the implementation of the CSME emphases that the time is now to be involved in the process, as "work has been going on for some time now relative to the harmonisation of customs legislation."
This calls for increased partnerships with both regional governments and the private sector ... which must be based on "credible policies, the establishment of standards for all parties, acceptable performance, compliance and accountability."
Whether it concerns the balance of trade between China and the U.S.A. or the export of Caribbean bananas to Europe, the present national, regional and global debates concerning trade, underscore the importance of forging partnerships that can strengthen our position and grant us additional bargaining power in the wider global economic village. Together we are indeed stronger.
