‘Too many cooks spoiling Customs broth’

A second political party has added its voice of protest over delays in the upgrade of the Customs and Excise Department automation system, ASYCUDA.

The United Progressive Party (UPP), one of the new parties that emerged just before the May 2018 General Elections, described the current situation as “highly unacceptable”, noting that the original start date for the new processing system of September 1 and the revised date of September 9 have long passed.

In the statement, the UPP’s General Secretary Wayne Griffith said: “The ASYCUDA World launch setbacks signal that the management of this project was not guided by established Information and Communications Technology (ICT) protocols.

“The elements which produce a successful project include phases of planning, design and testing before deployment and conversion to the new system.

“The transition should have been organised in a more structured manner with realistic timelines and milestones. Only then could achieving the overall objective of a seamless implementation with minimal disruption be accomplished.

“The UPP also wants to know if the Government will actually waive the port storage and demurrage fees caused by this disruption since any additional landing costs will always be passed onto the consumer.”

On this point, the UPP noted that the Government had made promises of refunds on certain matters since taking office in May last year, and to this date had not honoured its pledges.

The party said: “The Government promised to reimburse a partial refund to motorists who had paid road tax between June 12 and June 30, 2018, before they abolished the road tax, but those motorists are still waiting, along with Barbados Water Authority customers who, despite submitting their applications requesting a waiver from the Garbage and Sewage Collection (GSC) tax, still have gained no relief.”

The UPP said the failure to carry out the ASYCUDA World upgrade should come as no surprise since “this administration’s record of change is pockmarked with major fiascos”.

Examples of these fiascos, the party said, included the “capricious way in which disability pensions were withdrawn; the record number of schools unavailable for use at the start of the Michaelmas term; the TAP bus programme has not gone according to plan; income tax refunds that were promised for 2017 but are still outstanding, and the promised implementation of VAT on online transactions is incomplete”.

The UPP concluded that instead of the Barbados Labour Party’s oft-repeated slogan, “many hands make light work”, which was used to justify “the largest Cabinet in Barbados’ history, including highly paid consultants and duplicated ministers,” the current situation of ‘implementation constipation’ has only proven that ‘too many cooks spoil the broth.”

Chairman of the Barbados Port Inc., Senator Lisa Cummins, told journalists yesterday that Government was committed to discussing the issue of waiving the demurrage charges with the shipping companies.

“As a Government, and as a port and as the board of the port, we have given the commitment that we will engage with the shipping lines to discuss the question of demurrage charges [which accrue on goods stored on the dock].

“We will be making representation on behalf of our local importers to the shipping lines to see how we can address that issue,” she said.

On the issue of demurrage, Senator Cummins said: “The Barbados Port Inc. has full control of port fees and storage fees, and we are favourably disposed to agreeing to waive these fees on a case by case basis so that importers can have diminished costs associated with this transition period.”

The port’s Chief Executive Officer David Jean-Marie explained: “We permit five days free storage before we impose charges.

‘Once you go beyond that period, we will examine the reason for the delay and if it is not the importer’s fault, then we will waive the charges.”

Minister of Finance Ryan Straughn also told reporters that there was nothing wrong with the new ASYCUDA World System. From his point of view, the majority of issues came from clients submitting incorrect information.

In response to the complaints from retailers, the port and the Customs department have installed call centres where those affected can receive assistance.

The business community has complained that the delays in the transition process have had an impact on their ability to replenish their stocks, and have also expressed concern that they may have to pass on any storage fees and demurrage costs incurred to their customers, suggesting the items presently in storage at the port will be more expensive once they are released.