Headlines:
| Pile up of unclaimed goods at Customs |
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| Friday, 03 July 2009 | |
 The economic
crisis appears to be taking a serious toll on importers with reports of a major
pile up of unclaimed cargo at the Customs Department.Word out of Customs is that importers have been bringing in goods but are unable to pay the required duties and fees to facilitate clearance. The pile up is said to involve mainly vehicles, appliances and personal items. Commissioner of Customs Danville Walker says this has resulted in his Department increasing the number of public auctions. "We had a huge problem ... in December we had over 1,000 vehicles on the ports not being cleared and so we started running the actions. The year before I came to Customs I think they had maybe two auctions in one year (but) since December, I think this is the third one alone and maybe six or seven have been held since I (came) here," he said. Mr. Walker disclosed that arrangements were being made to hold monthly public auctions to eliminate the pile-up. Probe away - Walker welcomes OCG And Mr. Walker has welcomed the decision by the Office of the Contractor-General (OCG) to probe the auction system at the Customs Department.  Contractor
General Greg Christie announced Thursday that his office would look into the
auction of abandoned vehicles at the Queen's Warehouse on Tuesday and Wednesday
of this week following allegations by some of the bidders of irregularities
during the auction. Mr. Walker is defending the process, declaring that the auction system at Customs is above board. "Anybody can come and look at the procedures (as) we don't say it can't improve but improvement must speak to efficiency, it must not be improvement (with) another layer of bureaucracy. I don't know how you get to the locus of the OCG but I'm not even worried about that ... if the Contractor General feels that he needs to come and look at the procedure, we welcome them (as) we have nothing to hide on this process," Mr. Walker said Thursday on RJR's daily current affairs programme Beyond the Headlines. |