WHEN FISCAL Services introduced its Customs Automated Services Online in 1998, it met stiff resistance, partly because the software programme needed some debugging and largely because it cut chances for corruption.
CASE is an online application for customs brokers to send entries and get responses via computer. This along with other software allows Customs to clear goods more efficiently and with greater accountability and transparency. The software has won acceptance over time, especially from tech savvy brokers who want its efficiencies.
Now, it turns out that they aren't the only admirers of the software.
Several countries like how it helps to increase revenue collection and are asking Jamaica for a demonstration of this digital tool. Fiscal Services has received numerous requests for the application. Managing Director Lorenzo Grant has been in great demand for conferences and seminars where he has made presentations and conveyed Prime Minister P. J. Patterson's commitment to e-government.
Governments elsewhere seem anxious to replicate Fiscal's success. "Jamaica is way ahead of other developing countries in its methods of submission of entries to Customs," says Grant. "They want to learn from our experience because there is a growing acknowledgement that e-government is the way of the future."
Encouraged by the application's success, an international agency recently formed an alliance with Fiscal Services that could have a lasting impact on customs departments in the region. The agency, Crown Agents, is an international public sector/business consultancy that partners with clients to transfer skills, ideas and material resources for development. Crown Agents has developed three software modules for customs clearance.
The first module employs risk analysis and assigns risk to each entry helping to determine if it should be inspected or not. The second gathers intelligence on what is known about all entries, so that particular patterns can be recognised and fed into the risk analysis. The third captures information about entry values and the history of values so that queries can be submitted to a database for verification.
In tandem, these modules will distil information and direct customs to transactions and goods that most need inspection. They will complement Fiscal's CASE system by strengthening intelligence about and analysis of import entries. A multidisciplinary company, Crown Agents works with many inputs, including information technology, to streamline the processes of change in countries around the world. Its representative Luc Pugliati, says Crown Agents helps to stimulate growth in the public and private sectors. "With what we bring to Fiscal, we hope to make CASE a formidable product," says Pugliati.
The CASE system also got another boost recently following an agreement between the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Nova Scotia. This agreement sets up a facility for importers to use credit cards for payments to Customs on line. "This is the final piece of the puzzle" says Grant, "Once the facility is operational we will be able to say the importation of goods is fully automated."
The success and growth of the CASE programme has been a big gain for government. Since its implementation in 1998, Customs revenue increased even while the number of entries processed decreased. In 2001 alone, the Customs Department revenue was $25 billion, more than double the $12 billion it collected in 1998. And all this with fewer requests by brokers for Customs overtime and a simplification of procedures.
The success of this system has enabled Fiscal to make good use of its multiple skills in software development and implementation, software maintenance, implementation facilitation, systems infrastructural development, computer operations and database management and client training. Acknowledging its success, other government agencies are now looking to Fiscal for systems solutions, computerised service packages, consultancy and training.
