Sri Lanka Customs container clearance loopholes exposed
Sri Lanka Customs container clearance process is to be streamlined following the exposure of weaknesses in the inspections being carried out by custom officers.
The Finance Ministry has issued a directive to the Customs Department to strengthen risk management system, cargo inspection and clearance using modern technology and new systems.
In the wake of the recent detection of garbage containers imported to Sri Lanka, the need to strengthening the customs clearance has arisen.
A new container scanner system will be introduced by September to strengthen Customs clearance and detection procedure, Customs Media spokesman and Director Sunil Jayaratne told the Business Times.Customs will
be importing four scanners from Rapiscan Security Products Ltd, UK and it will be installed at custom’s examination centres by next month, he said.
Customs has taken action to release 221,503 containers under light, deep, high risk and red inspection categories while 2,268 containers have been released without inspection during the year 2017/ 2018, the recent Government Audit report revealed.
Further 9,262 containers were subjected to scan tests and the number of containers referred to the institutions registered under the Board of Investment is 18,689, the report highlighted.
Due to not conducting a thorough inspection on the containers, it has been found that there was a number of custom offences such as importation of narcotics and tax frauds.
These tax frauds had been committed by way of importing non declared items, more items than the declared amount, items under wrong categories, and other items instead of declared items and items of law quality standards.
Focusing more attention on consignments originating from a port identified by the Customs as a risk base according to risk profiles of smuggling and malpractices should be done away with by the department, the Finance Ministry directed.
This internal risk management should be streamlined in accordance with recent practices in other developed countries like Singapore.
European countries and Australia are not included in the risk profile and such countries have been treated with 100 per cent integrity.
Customs inspection has been made compulsory for items imported from countries like Pakistan and India due to their past records and risk profiles, a senior Treasury official said.
No suitable methodology has been introduced by the authorities to monitor the prices of items sold at Duty Free Shops at the airport, the audit inspection revealed.
It was observed that the prices are determined on the discretion of the shop owners.
Due to non-recovery of custom duties for the items sold at these shops, the government has incurred a massive loss in tax revenue.
There were instances where no proper supervision was made by responsible parties on duty free foreign liquor shops at Colombo Port, Katunayake Airport and State Trading Corporation.
Under these circumstances, the Auditor General pointed out that the loss caused to the tax revenue due to the influx of duty free foreign liquor to the open market had to be recovered by the Treasury from local liquor taxes.