The Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion re­cent­ly in­tro­duced a new com­put­er pro­gramme for the pro­cess­ing of doc­u­ments, with a pro­cess­ing fee of $40 a doc­u­ment. Some cus­toms clerks and cus­toms bro­kers have re­ceived el­e­men­tary train­ing with the new sys­tem, and cus­toms of­fi­cers have al­so in­di­cat­ed that they have un­der­gone min­i­mal train­ing. Some con­fess to know­ing noth­ing about a new form be­ing im­ple­ment­ed. Since the in­tro­duc­tion of this new sys­tem in ear­ly Oc­to­ber, there has been much con­fu­sion re­sult­ing in de­lays. When is­sues were raised, cus­toms of­fi­cers said there were some "teething" prob­lems and "we are work­ing on those is­sues." Some of the of­fi­cers in San Fer­nan­do state "that they know noth­ing about the prob­lems and to check Port-of-Spain.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, there were no fees for ship­ping bills and there was a free flow of goods out of the coun­try. Now the ex­porter has to pay $40 for each ship­ment. This has re­sult­ed in very long lines and un­pro­duc­tive hours spent in the line to the cashier to pay $40; this can take three-four hours. In some in­stances, ex­porters lit­er­al­ly missed the boat since they were un­able to pay this pro­cess­ing fee in time. The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty wel­comes change and any mea­sure that will im­prove the ef­fi­cien­cy will be em­braced. How­ev­er, prop­er plan­ning and train­ing must first be un­der­tak­en be­fore new mea­sures are im­ple­ment­ed. We are al­so ques­tion­ing the wis­dom of the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion to in­tro­duce a new sys­tem in the peak Di­vali/Christ­mas sea­son. It is lead­ing to de­lays which can re­sult in high­er costs to the con­sumer. It is now time for the Gov­ern­ment to in­ter­vene.

VR Williams

San Fer­nan­do