THE Saint Lucia Customs and Excise Department yesterday celebrated International Customs Day.
Comptroller Sherman Emmanuel (in a speech aired yesterday) noted that the Department intends to leverage key partnerships to build greater capacity which can potentially impact strategic focus areas.
“International Customs Day is an occasion in which there is a worldwide focus on the important role of Customs officials and Customs administrations in screening goods and people as they move across borders throughout the world. The Saint Lucia Customs and Excise Department will mark International Customs Day with a week of activities beginning January 22nd and will culminate in a dinner on the 27th of January to honour recent retirees. In celebrating International Customs Day, I must congratulate the many hardworking men and women of our Department as well as other Customs administrations who are being recognized and honoured,” Emmanuel said.
“The WCO (World Customs Organization) is encouraging its members to deepen existing partnerships while purposefully exploring and exploiting new ones. Customs as you know performs a number of critical national functions including revenue collection, border security and the facilitation of trade and travel. Collaborations with local, regional and international partners is a significant contributor to achieving this mandate,” Emmanuel added.
As Customs aims to improve border security, Emmanuel said tightening the noose on the illicit trafficking of small arms and light weapons “is certainly an area in which we are working to forge new partnerships. Good partnerships ensure we build capacity effectively and enforce appropriate border controls, actively collect revenue and facilitate trading and travel across borders.”
For International Customs Day, the Customs and Excise Department is also being encouraged to explore new ways of doing things which can improve its efficiency as well as its effectiveness.
Emmanuel said that this year’s theme is timely as the Customs Department is in the process of leveraging technology with a view to achieve “what we are hoping will be a paperless Customs environment.”
“This will undoubtedly be a cultural shift, often not an easy shift but a necessary one. It will mean fewer hurdles for the trading community while reducing our operating cost and management of physical documents. It is our hope that International Customs Day will be the occasion to focus on successes in partnerships as well as the range of possibilities which remain untapped,” Emmanuel said.
The Ministry of Health, Ministry of Commerce, Plant, Quarantine, Vet and Livestock Divisions of the Ministry of Agriculture, Marine Police Unit, Royal Saint Lucia Police Force, Saint Lucia Bureau of Standards and the Saint Lucia Air and Seaport Authority are amongst those who work alongside the Customs Department.