Customs chief complain of poor response to EDI
JAKARTA (JP): Director General of Customs and Excise Tax Soehardjo Soebardi complained yesterday about the lack of response to the electronic data interchange (EDI) system for the processing of customs documents.
Soehardjo said his office had tried to convince businesspeople and government offices of the benefits of EDI in improving overall economic efficiency.
"But their response remains very low," he said.
Soehardjo, Minister of Finance Mar'ie Muhammad, Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto, Minister of Industry and Trade Tunky Ariwibowo and Bank Indonesia Governor Soedradjad Djiwandono yesterday briefed President Soeharto on the merits of EDI.
"The President instructed that EDI be promoted throughout the country," Soehardjo said.
EDI was launched in April to coincide with the enforcement of the new customs law which applies selective on-arrival inspection and post-entry audit systems for imports. It replaced the preshipment inspection service which had been used since mid- 1985.
But importers have been complaining about the large portion of imports subjected to physical inspection, resulting in delays of up to two weeks in the clearance of goods from the port.
"Moreover, we think the customs service has yet to improve its human resources to facilitate smooth EDI operations," said chairman of the Indonesian Importers Association, Amiruddin, in a hearing with the House of Representatives here earlier this month.
Importers have argued that EDI benefits would be nullified if the customs service, which is required by law to physically inspect goods on a selective basis, still held up many import consignments for such a time-consuming inspection.
They also complained that investment in EDI hardware and software would not reduce costs as long as many related government offices were not logged on to the system.
EDI has also been designed to minimize physical contact between businesspeople and customs officials, thereby reducing opportunities for collusion or malfeasance.
But importers claimed physical contact remained intensive due to the reckless physical inspection of goods by customs officials.
Soehardjo lambasted foreign exchange banks for their lack of support for EDI, a paperless system designed to speed up the processing of customs documents by linking importers, banks, customs, port office, freight forwarders and other related agencies through computers.
"Only 74 of the 121 foreign exchange banks have come online with the EDI system," Soehardjo said.
But he was optimistic that EDI would be fully implemented for imports at ports throughout Java later this year and at ports outside Java next year.
"We have been informed by the minister of finance that export documents would also be processed through EDI starting next April," he said.
Soehardjo said one reason behind the poor support for EDI was that businesspeople are afraid their "banking secrecies" would be exposed to customs officials.
He suspected some companies hesitated to use EDI because they had things to hide.
But Soehardjo said such fear was groundless because customs officials only required information related to import consignments, prices, customs tariffs and payments to be inputted through EDI.
He reaffirmed the importance of EDI, especially in facing the ASEAN Free Trade Area in 2003 and the economy's increasing globalization.
"I am not exaggerating to say that the life or death of our trade in this era of globalization depends on EDI," Soehardjo said.
Asked why many importers still complained about the poor customs service, Soehardjo said importers who raised such complaints usually handled their import clearance through customs brokers. (vin)