The New Nation - Internet Edition

THE customs administration is by far the single biggest revenue earner. But its outmoded prevailing mode of conducting customs procedure--manually--makes a huge difference in revenue collection from the various manipulations and corruptions which have become an integral part of the system. Partial automation of customs has been attempted. But the need is full automation for getting the much bigger benefits from the same.

Some businesses have vested interests involved in retaining the present system because it enables them to evade full payment of various customs duties or paying them in proportion to the imported commodities. A section of employees in the customs department also form part of these interest groups. They visualise automation as threatening their dominance of the system and extra earnings. But generally, businesses have no objection to such automation because the same will actually help them with hassle-free operations and spare them from making underhand payments.

Thus, automation of customs have multiple prospects. First, it should lead to a big rise in the collection of revenue. The operations of honest and scrupulous businessmen would become easier from proper introduction and enforcement of the system. Business costs will further go down, notably, after the switchover to fully automated customs. The annual earnings of the Chittagong Customs House is expected to increase from 110 billion Taka to 150 billion Taka provided the customs administration is reformed and automation fully enforced in every tier. Some 45 complex manual procedures that create inordinate delays in the clearance of goods will come down to 25 with the automation for speed, accuracy and fairness in evaluation of duties. But the automated procedures alone will not achieve the intended outcome. Other measures such as giving greater responsibility to honest and efficient officials should be ensured.