Customs ready to meet challenges of EU membership

The Customs Department has almost completed the changes needed to enable it to fulfil its obligations when Malta joins the EU on May 1.

The department is redeploying staff to enable it to meet the challenge of the huge changes taking place as from the accession date.

One such change was the introduction of a new computerised system known as the Customs Electronic System, which would revolutionise Customs procedures.

"As from May 1, Customs in Malta would be accountable to 24 Customs administrations in the EU. It would form part of a team of 25 countries to protect the EU frontier," Customs director general John Mifsud said when he welcomed Parliamentary Secretary Tony Abela on a visit to the department yesterday.

The EU had specific regulations on how Customs in the EU should operate and Malta had to observe those regulations.

Mr Mifsud told Customs staff: "From May 1, you will not remain the Maltese Customs but become the EU Customs. Money generated from Customs would no longer go to the Maltese exchequer but to that of the EU," he explained.

The new strategy would be directed at facilitating the movement of products and, at the same time, to ensure that the necessary controls were made, he said.

"This is easy to say but hard to implement. If there were excessive controls, one would create obstacles to business but with no controls one would be opening the door to abuse. Therefore, the right balance has to be found," Mr Mifsud said. The Customs Department had to be constantly alert and find new ways to remove chances of abuse and to improve controls.

Mr Mifsud referred to the haul of seven million counterfeit cigarettes at the Malta Freeport last month.

Major seizures by the Customs Enforcement Unit last year included 5.5 million counterfeit cigarettes, 7,364 CDs/VCDs, 5,056 litres of alcohol, 216 satellite dishes and 90kgs of pasta apart from wearing apparel, bags, mobile phone covers, perfumery, furniture, sport shoes and wine.

As a result of the new computer system, processing would be paperless and all declarations would be scrutinised automatically through the risk analysis module. The module is pre-programmed to pick out those declarations where a documentary or physical examination was necessary. All other declarations would be automatically released once payment of relative Customs debt was settled or secured.

Any other checks would be on a post-clearance audit basis. Traders would be required to retain all documentation for a minimum of three years.

Audit teams would visit traders to do documentary checks.