‘Single Window’: New system ‘to end import red tape’ – Symmonds

A regulatory mess entangling the importation of goods in which clearance is required from multiple government agencies should be a thing of the past with the Single Window System being planned for ports of entry, said Minister of Energy, Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Kerrie Symmonds.

During Tuesday’s debate on the Customs Bill in Parliament, Symmonds said business owners have been frustrated by vast amounts of time wasted by distributors and other importers of goods when it came to the multiple steps they would have to endure while conducting their work.

He said: “They have to go through a number of different stops along the way. It did not come through Customs and then I can get it, very often it involves, depending on what I am bringing in, I may have to go through the Police Force, I may have to go through the Defence Force. Depending on what I am bringing in I may have to go through Government Plant Quarantine, depending on what I am bringing in I may have to go through the Drug Service… the question is at every stop, at every contact point, a little bit of time is spent.”

Symmonds said the time lost in moving from entity to entity often resulted in higher costs to consumers, who are left with extra fees because of the long wait businesses experience when looking to acquire goods through the ports.

Symmonds revealed that during last month’s UNCTAD 15 conference, he and the Secretary General of UNCTAD signed the commencement of the island’s participation in the Single Window process, which will see importers being allowed to submit all requisite information into a single system, thus paving the way for several agencies to have access to the data at any given time, which in turn will reduce the amount of time once needed for the trading of goods from different regions.

The system will be built out by UNCTAD for the island over the next 20 months, with the benefits of the new process being expected to significantly increase the level of trade being available to businesses and entrepreneurs, said the minister for entrepreneurship.

Symmonds said: “We can’t go on that way, and this is what this is about. That is the mischief that we failed to correct from 2008 until now. It is understandable why the Minister in the Ministry of Finance must feel a certain sense of pride to be able to be here to do today, that which he has just done, because he is lifting the average Barbadian business person out of a regulatory mess that existed.

“The bureaucratic red tape was stifling the business community of this country.” (SB)