Customs office must be serious in reforms: Analysts
Customs office must be serious in reforms: Analysts
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Analysts cautiously welcomed on Tuesday the reform initiatives
recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the
Directorate of Customs and Excise, calling on the directorate to
do use this opportunity to improve its performance and
reputation.
Sofyan Wanandi, the chairman of the National Committee for
Economic Recovery, lauded the plan to form an advisory committee
comprising government officials, business associations and
experts to advise and criticize the customs office.
He said business associations were the best source of
information for the directorate to identify crooked importers and
exporters, and as such to help customs officials perform their
jobs.
"I consider the reforms very positive," Sofyan said.
On Monday, Director General of Customs and Excise Permana
Agung announced his office would carry out a 17-point
restructuring program recommended by the IMF, aimed at improving
the integrity of customs officials and cleaning up the customs
office of corruption and illegal practices.
The technical details of the program will be formulated by a
steering committee headed by the minister of finance and
including business associations. This committee will convene
every Wednesday and is expected to complete its job by the end of
the year. The implementation of the reform program could begin
early next year.
M. Ikhsan, an economist from the University of Indonesia, said
the reform program was good, but there was nothing new in it.
"For instance, the formation of a special (advisory) committee
was actually called for by the customs law (No. 10/1995). The IMF
just recommended something that the law called for a long time
ago," Ikhsan said.
Under the customs law, the advisory committee is called the
Customs and Excise Advisory Board. It was supposed to comprise
the government, businesspeople and experts. The function of the
board was to have been to hear disputes between businesspeople
and the customs office and submit a decision to the director
general of customs and excise, who would make a final ruling
based on the committee's decision.
It is not known why the government never formed the committee,
seven years after the implementation of the law.
Sofyan noted that the advisory committee should also be
empowered to supervise customs officials and recommend
disciplinary actions against corrupt officials. He added that the
committee could not be headed by a customs official, to ensure
its independence.
The customs office has long been considered one of the most
corrupt institutions in the country, and many businesspeople have
called for the curtailing of its authority. They have asked the
government to reinstate the preshipment inspection of Indonesian
imports and rehire Swiss-based surveyor Societe Generale de
Surveillance (SGS), which did the preshipment inspections from
1985 until 1995, when the government returned the job of
inspecting imports to the customs office.
Ikhsan is among the experts who has recommended the rehiring
of SGS, because of deep concerns over corruption in the customs
office.
According to Ikhsan, the IMF prefers reforming the customs
office to rehiring SGS, which it consider too costly.
"I agree that we cannot continue to depend on SGS. We have to
empower our customs office, but I am pessimistic that the office
will change given the corrupt mentality of its officials," he
said.
Sofyan also said he was pessimistic the customs office would
successfully reform itself.
"Anyway, it is fair enough to give the office another chance
-- maybe one or two years -- to show to the public that it is
able to change itself. Let's believe that the office is willing
to take part in the current reform movement," he said.