THE Bureau of Customs (BOC) has credited a Japanese aid agency for giving it the capacity to undertake postentry audits of all goods that pass through Philippine ports.

In a report, the agency said that if not for the help of Japan International Cooperation Agency, which provided technical support, the BOC may have been unable to carry out the its postentry-audit measure due to the limitation of its employees.

“Several of its [BOC] personnel found out that they were not suited for the postclearance work and sought reassignments elsewhere,” the agency said in its 2007 report on the measure.

The said measure involved examining thousands of records that customs handled during the past years and determining whether smuggling activities took place.

The agency said the program only took off last year, after four years in the drawing board, when Customs Commissioner Napoleon L. Morales instructed employees to go after critical industries such as oil companies, which contribute a fifth of the bureau’s annual revenues.

Last year, the BOC was able to collect P944 million, a huge part of which came from compliance audits, while an estimated P130 million was made through the Voluntary Disclosure Program, which was implemented during the second half of 2007.

Of the more than 8,000 accredited importers, the BOC issued some 165 audit notification letters to the companies, or 2.2 percent of the total number of importers registered with the BOC, the report said.

The bureau said that after inspecting oil companies’ records, which led to the temporary closure of one of the country’s largest depots in Bataan, the agency turned to other larger industries such as hardware goods, ships, motor vehicles, wood and steel, among others.

“In spite of the lack of personnel for auditing work, the unit was only able to audit less than 4 percent of the importers accredited by the Bureau of Customs,” the report said.

“For 2008, [the group] is aiming to break the P1-billion mark,” it added.

The BOC needs the postaudit-entry measure to comply with the standards set by the Revised Kyoto Convention, or the International Convention on the Simplification and Harmonization of Customs Procedures, an agreement which the Philippines has not yet endorsed.

The country’s postaudit regime was embodied in the Customs Modernization Act of 2003, and was strengthened by President Arroyo when she issued an executive order to create a department at the BOC called the Post Audit Entry Group.

Besides experiencing birth pains, the new department also underwent rigorous capacity-building seminars. The new department members also took up valuation- and classification-technique courses in Japan.

Harder approval for cuts in port-usage fees

EXPORTERS may find it more difficult to convince the government to extend wharfage discounts for goods sold abroad after a port body was ordered to course such requests to the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC).

THE Bureau of Customs (BOC) has credited a Japanese aid agency for giving it the capacity to undertake postentry audits of all goods that pass through Philippine ports.

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