An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

Frus­tra­tion is grow­ing amongst the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty over the on­go­ing dis­rup­tion to the Cus­toms Bor­der Con­trol Sys­tem (ASY­CU­DA), which is re­sult­ing in sig­nif­i­cant fi­nan­cial loss­es for them. And they are now call­ing for an ur­gent meet­ing with the Comp­trol­ler of Cus­toms.

The ASY­CU­DA is a com­put­erised cus­toms man­age­ment sys­tem used by the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion to fa­cil­i­tate in­ter­na­tion­al trade.

An of­fi­cial from the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion said yes­ter­day while a back­up sys­tem has been in ef­fect since Mon­day, there are glitch­es that are be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced and of­fi­cials are hope­ful that the sys­tem can be ful­ly func­tion­ing by to­day, as the IT de­part­ment is work­ing to re­store it.

A no­tice by the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion ear­li­er this week said the sys­tem was com­pro­mised due to wa­ter leaks at Cus­toms House, Gov­ern­ment Cam­pus Plaza, Port-of-Spain. It added that the di­vi­sion ex­pect­ed the ser­vice to be back by Tues­day (Ju­ly 1).

How­ev­er, Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj said con­trary to some me­dia re­ports, the sys­tem was not ful­ly op­er­a­tional at mid­night on Ju­ly 1, as op­er­a­tional per­son­nel were un­able to process im­port or ex­port doc­u­ments, re­sult­ing in a whol­ly un­pro­duc­tive 24-hour pe­ri­od that has now stretched in­to a sec­ond day.

Ma­haraj not­ed that even pri­or to the re­cent wa­ter leak at Cus­toms House, the ASY­CU­DA had been plagued by weeks of tech­ni­cal prob­lems, ex­pos­ing a trou­bling lack of back­up in­fra­struc­ture or dis­as­ter re­cov­ery pro­to­cols.

He in­di­cat­ed that the eco­nom­ic con­se­quences are al­ready be­ing felt, as sev­er­al cham­ber mem­bers re­port­ed that re­frig­er­at­ed con­tain­ers car­ry­ing per­ish­able goods re­main un­cleared, pos­ing a risk of spoilage.

He said oth­er mem­bers say the cost­ly de­mur­rage fees, the now emp­ty shelves and lost sales are ma­jor set­backs to their busi­ness­es. He out­lined that this is hav­ing a cu­mu­la­tive im­pact which is dam­ag­ing busi­ness con­fi­dence and erod­ing T&T’s com­pet­i­tive­ness on the re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el.

“We can­not con­tin­ue to op­er­ate in an en­vi­ron­ment where the en­tire trade sys­tem grinds to a halt with no clear con­tin­gency plan. This is no longer just a tech­ni­cal is­sue, it is a na­tion­al eco­nom­ic emer­gency. The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty stands ready to col­lab­o­rate on a so­lu­tion, but it is now up to the au­thor­i­ties to act with ur­gency and se­ri­ous­ness,” Ma­haraj said.

“We are al­so call­ing on the new ad­min­is­tra­tion to treat this mat­ter as a top pri­or­i­ty, em­pha­sis­ing that the pri­vate sec­tor can­not func­tion ef­fec­tive­ly with­out re­li­able pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture. The time for tem­po­rary fix­es is over. Sus­tain­able re­form is a na­tion­al im­per­a­tive,” said Ma­haraj.

Al­so ex­press­ing con­cern was the Cus­toms Clerks and Cus­toms Bro­kers As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (CC­C­BA), which said al­though some man­u­al clear­ances are be­ing fa­cil­i­tat­ed by cer­tain of­fi­cers, these are not suf­fi­cient to man­age the vol­ume and com­plex­i­ty of na­tion­al trade ac­tiv­i­ty.

It al­so not­ed that se­ri­ous op­er­a­tional chal­lenges with ASY­CU­DA were on­go­ing even be­fore this most re­cent in­ci­dent. The as­so­ci­a­tion ex­plained that for more than a month be­fore the wa­ter leak, the sys­tem had been “un­sta­ble” and “un­re­li­able.”

It said this lat­est de­vel­op­ment has ex­posed what ap­pears to be a lack—or to­tal ab­sence—of a func­tion­al back­up sys­tem to en­sure busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity in times of dis­rup­tion. The as­so­ci­a­tion is there­fore call­ing up­on the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties and de­ci­sion-mak­ers to meet with stake­hold­ers as a mat­ter of na­tion­al ur­gency.

“We, the CC­C­BA, will main­tain an open line of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion as they work as­sid­u­ous­ly to fix this is­sue. We al­so recog­nise that our cus­tomers—im­porters and ex­porters—are anx­ious to have their goods cleared as soon as pos­si­ble to avoid es­ca­lat­ing costs such as port and ware­house rent, de­mur­rage, and oth­er un­nec­es­sary charges,” it out­lined.

Mean­while, T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) pres­i­dent Dale Par­son said, “The ex­tend­ed dis­rup­tion of ASY­CU­DA is se­vere­ly im­pact­ing trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion and by ex­ten­sion the na­tion’s eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and im­me­di­ate in­ter­ven­tion are crit­i­cal at this time. Man­u­fac­tur­ers have hun­dreds of con­tain­ers to ex­port but can­not, re­sult­ing in miss­ing week­ly sail­ing sched­ules with CMA, Trop­i­cal, Seaboard, and oth­er lines—ad­verse­ly af­fect­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness.”

The TTMA boss is call­ing on the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion or Min­istry of Fi­nance to ur­gent­ly:

• Pro­vide a clear and time­ly up­date on the cur­rent sta­tus of ASY­CU­DA and a time­line for its full restora­tion;

• Out­line a mit­i­ga­tion plan to ad­dress the grow­ing back­log of con­tain­ers cur­rent­ly held at the na­tion’s ports, present­ly in­cur­ring port rent and de­mur­rage;

• En­gage with port au­thor­i­ties to ex­tend rent-free days equiv­a­lent to the du­ra­tion of the sys­tem’s down­time, to al­le­vi­ate the fi­nan­cial bur­den on af­fect­ed busi­ness­es; and

• Pro­vide clar­i­ty on Cus­toms over­time avail­abil­i­ty to clear car­go from the na­tion’s ports and bonds re­sult­ing from ASY­CU­DA is­sues.