Businesses hail anti-smuggling team
Businesses hail anti-smuggling team
Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Business associations hailed the government's plan to set up an
interdepartmental antismuggling team to curb rampant smuggling
activities in the country, although some doubted whether the team
would be effective.
"The team must focus on ensuring that import procedures will
be strictly applied by the customs and excise office," director
of the Indonesian Textile Association (API) Indra Ibrahim told
The Jakarta Post on Monday.
"The team must make sure that high ranking officials in the
customs office work properly. This will have a chain effect on
subordinates encouraging them to work correctly and stop
violating procedures," he added.
Textiles, electronics, footwear, and children's toys are the
most badly affected by smuggling activities.
The government decided last week in a Cabinet meeting to set
up a powerful team to curb smuggling in the country amid mounting
criticism over the impotence of the customs and excise office in
tackling such activities.
The government said the team would consist of officials from
the customs and excise office, the National Police and relevant
state agencies.
The team would have power to impose strict measures on
offenders and to crack down on all kinds of smuggling activities.
Executive director of the Indonesian Electronics Producers
Association (Gabel) Lee Kang Hyun said the antismuggling team
would have a crucial role in suppressing smuggling activities.
Lee urged the team to force the customs and excise office to
impose a tight inspection procedure on the import of the four
products commonly smuggled.
He added that law enforcement such as punishing smugglers was
crucial in a bid to fight smuggling activities.
Meanwhile, secretary-general of the Indonesian Footwear
Association (Aprisindo) Djimanto said that the presence of the
antismuggling team would be ineffective as long as the government
did not revise existing regulations which allowed confiscated
smuggled products to enter the domestic market via auction or
after the importers paid a fine.
"It (the team) will do little ... It won't solve the problem.
The government must change the regulations to really curb
smuggling activities," he said.
Djimanto said the government must burn the confiscated
smuggled products or reexport them to save domestic products.
Smuggling activities have been particularly rampant in the
country over the last five years since the country plunged into a
deep economic crisis in 1997.
The rampant smuggling activities are facilitated by collusion
between corrupt customs officials and importers.