The Anguilla Customs Department is among such public sector establishments in three Overseas Territories benefiting from a reform modernization programme with the assistance of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in the ASYCUDA Programme.

L-R: Jamie Mendozer and Mr. Kenrick Richardson

The ASYCUDA Regional Adviser, for UNCTAD, Jamie Mendozer, was in Anguilla last week to begin the work. “It is a multi-country programme funded by the European Commission and it will assist in the reform efforts of the Turks & Caicos Islands, Anguilla and Montserrat as Overseas Territories of the United Kingdom,” he said in an interview with The Anguillian.

Mr. Mendozer is based in Trinidad and Tobago from where his office administers its regional support. Asked how the Customs Departments in the territories would benefit from the modernization programme, he explained: “We use information technology as the catalyst of the reform process and we are implementing the latest version of the ASYCUDA World System that is the automated system for Customs data. It will allow Customs to automate all its operations and also provide better conditions for trade to do their business with customs. It will allow Customs Brokers and carriers to submit their Customs declarations through electronic means…thus assisting Customs in modernising and moving towards full automation.”

The ASYCUDA official said that all Customs Brokers, representatives of carriers and other stakeholders in trade, including Customs Officers, would be trained in the necessary information technology and the standard functional Customs procedures and related matters.

Asked what some of the spin-off benefits to the business community were, Mr. Mendozer
replied: “One of the best benefits is that, through the implementation of the reform, we will be able to reduce the time that is required to clear goods and streamline the processes to remove all the paper-intensive manual tasks through the automation of the procedures. We will also reach all the best practices that are recommended by the World Customs Organisation, the World Trade Organisation and, of course, the other United Nations bodies.

Anguilla’s Comptroller of Customs, Kenrick Richardson, said that his department was currently using the older 2.7 version of the automated information technology system. What we are now embarking on is a version which would allow trade operators to interact more with the Customs Department. Under the system they would be exposed to what is called “direct trader input”. It will be a major feature. What it does for us is that it reduces the cost to Government because there would be no need to employ that volume of staff any more. The trade operators would work at their own pace and you won’t be able to say there has been a delay because you are now placed in that position and we would be just facilitating and validating the entire process.”

Mr. Richardson stated that the new system would call for some changes in the way Customs Offices did their work before. “For example, we will now have to reach out to people instead of staying in our offices and they coming to us. We who now have the technical capacity to do the work will have to go to them. The trade may lack it so it is our function now to go out and assist the trade in all aspects of the system.”

He went on: “Some people may feel that this is way in which we are going to defraud the Customs since we are doing our own thing; but the laws of the Customs are constructed in a way where we have five years to go back and make checks. It may look simple at the start, but we have laws and there will be new legislation in place to allow this programme to be launched in Anguilla and to benefit everybody.”

Mr. Richardson promised that further information would be given to the public shortly including the new Customs forms to be filled out electronically.

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