Freight forwarders accused of hindering imports

JAKARTA (JP): The Director General of Customs and Excise Tax, Soehardjo Soebardi, says freight forwarding companies are impeding the flow of imports via air cargo services.

Soehardjo told The Jakarta Post at his office over the weekend that freight forwarders often act more like customs service scalpers rather than customs brokers.

He explained that the forwarders often exploit small-scale importers, or travelers, who are carrying goods which have to be declared to customs officials. They charge their customers extra money for what they describe as "services to deal with customs officials".

"They intentionally create such a situation that small-scale importers and travelers feel it is essential to use their services in relation to customs matters," Soebardjo said.

They create the image that customs officials at airports have some kind of disease that makes them difficult to deal with, he said.

"They are like robbers crying 'thief'. Unfortunately, we are powerless to control them. Even airport managements seem incapable of curbing them," Soehardjo said.

He made the remarks in response to allegations by the Association of Indonesian Importers that importers sometimes have to bribe customs officials to have their goods inspected and cleared quickly.

Soehardjo contended that it is very often the freight forwarders who intentionally slow down customs clearance so that they can charge additional money for rapid clearance of goods through the customs areas.

"They intentionally make customs clearance processes more complicated and longer. Then, they blame us for creating the bottleneck in the processes. And the people just believe it because they are prejudiced against us," Soehardjo said.

He explained that freight forwarders are so "wild" in their operations because the government is "too good" to them. The government does not require them to provide bank guarantees for their operations.

"So when a freight forwarder is convicted of violating a regulation, for instance, he just disappears for a while and then suddenly shows up with a new freight forwarding company. This has happened," Soehardjo said.

He appealed to all parties who need customs services to go directly to customs offices. He promised that customs officials, especially in "dangerous" areas like Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta international airport and Tanjung Priok port, will do their best to expedite customs clearance.

"We are actually very open to the needs of the people. If they want to communicate directly with us, they can do so. We would appreciate that. My door is always open to everybody," Soehardjo said.

Soehardjo, who was accompanied by Director of Tariffs and Prices Daeng M. Nazier and Head of the Data and Information Center Eddy Abdurrachman, during the interview, partly blamed the lack of communication between the customs offices and users of customs services for the complaints addressed to his staff.

Citing examples, he pointed out that complaints from publicly- listed pharmaceuticals firm Kalbe Farma about customs inspection of its drug materials and from the Association of Spinning Companies about the taking of cotton samples from container boxes had resulted from a communication gap.

The spinners association recently protested against a ruling issued by the head of the Tanjung Priok customs office, which required customs officials to take two packages of cotton from every cotton shipment.

The association claimed that the ruling could hamper the flow of imported cotton, which in turn would impede production processes in the cotton-spinning industry.

Daeng explained that the ruling was designed to check the tariff classification of the cotton imports because "raw cotton and combed cotton have different tariff classifications.

"Anyway, the ruling has been revoked," Daeng said.

Kalbe Farma complained late last month that customs officials at the Soekarno-Hatta airport often removed labels from the pharmaceutical packages, thereby interfering with the manufacturing of the drugs.

"If they had informed us earlier, we would have not opened the packages. This kind of problem resulted only from the lack of communication between the customs office and importers," Daeng said. (rid)