THE JAMAICA Customs Department said adequate mechanisms have been put in place to handle the additional volume of import entry documents and to ensure the timely processing of the forms at Customs House in Kingston following changes to its policy just under three months ago.
Importers with shipments valued at less than US$1,000 used to be able to clear their goods using the C79 import entry form, which could have been processed at various points at the airports and wharves.
However, the Customs Department has now made it mandatory for all commercial goods valued at US$5,000 or less to be entered and cleared using the more complex C78 import entry forms, which must be processed at Customs House, Newport East.
COMPLAINTS
Responding to a complaint from Kingston-based importer, James Woodham, that "apparently little or no provision was made to handle the additional volume of documents at Customs House," public relations manager for the Customs Department, Thelma Downie, said last week that although there had initially been a problem, entries were now being processed in a timely manner.
She said entries lodged with Customs House electronically were processed within 24 hours, while those lodged manually were dealt with within three days.
Mr. Woodham, in a complaint letter to The Gleaner, said there was a lack of commitment to improve the service at Customs House, noting that that section was already critically overloaded and inefficient even before the new policy decision became effective.
C79 FORMS
"This additional volume is significant," said the importer. "For example, at one particular point at the airport, over 80 units of C79 forms were processed daily. Multiply this by about five separate units at (the) Norman Manley Airport and you get the feel of the additional volume of documents which will no longer be processed on C79 but now have to go to Customs House to be processed on C78 forms. This C78 form has too much unnecessary information and therefore multiplies the possibility for errors of all types and the delays these cause."
Mr. Woodham also criticised the Customs administration for issuing what he called "one of the dreaded 'effective immediately' memo without any management due diligence of measuring the consequences of the action or to ensure that this does not adversely affect the service to their customers."
He suggested that "improving the outdated and inefficient services at Customs" should be everybody's business and that "it's time this become the number one focus of the Customs administration."
