Customs to cut bureaucracy in clearance procedure

Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Directorate General of Customs and Excise has issued a new policy in a bid to streamline bureaucracy to help smooth the flow of goods into the country.

The policy, which will become effective on April 1, 2003, covers the post-release control of goods at the customs office.

Under the post-release process, the customs office will check whether the importers have already paid the necessary import duties.

Nirwala Dwi Heriyanto, head of the reform program for import registration and post-release control at the directorate, said on Thursday that the current procedure was deemed unfavorable to businesses because importers had to deal with three divisions.

He said each division often gave different opinions on whether the importers had paid the necessary import duties, opening room for customs officials to either extort money from importers or collude so that the latter could pay lower duties.

"The current procedure creates uncertainty for importers," Nirwala said.

He said the new policy would also help eliminate such corruption.

Under the policy, the post-release control procedure would be integrated into one division, thus making the import clearance process more efficient.

The new post-release control would only be applied to importers importing "high-risk goods" such as sugar, rice and other commodities or goods whose inflow into the country hurts local producers.

The customs office has often been criticized for extorting money from importers and had long-been considered as one of the bottlenecks for an efficient production system. This problem has created a high-cost economy, which is partly responsible for the current economic crisis at home.

Amid the growing criticism and the government's drive to implement good corporate governance (part of a commitment to international donors), the customs office has recently started to revamp the institution.

The current post-release procedure requires all importers, including those given a non-inspection privilege status, to undergo triple checking for every single import notice document.

Under this system, importers will have to obtain approval letters from the first verification unit. After this, they will have to go to a second office for re-verification. And finally, the third check will be conducted by an audit team.

Each unit has the authority to declare whether the importers have fulfilled the necessary requirements. But often bad customs officials accuse importers of tax violations and demand money.