KINGSTON: Jamaica Customs Agency (JCA) is urging stakeholders to hold strain, while changes are being made to the legislation governing its processes. But the players are worried over what they feel are amendments that will lead to nothing but more of the same challenges they have been grappling with for years.
They say that what the Government is coming with are more penalties, underpinned by other onerous provisions, which assume that everyone is out to beat the system.
“Based on the draft presented to us so far, the revision clearly would heighten the revenue collection processes and fees, and the fines that customs collect,” Chief Financial Officer at Lannaman and Morris Group, William Brown believes.
Brown said that shipping agents have made “numerous overtures” to both JCA and the Port Authority of Jamaica over the past three to four years, about their concerns that the legislation is skewed too much in the direction of “catching” people, and extracting as much as possible from importers. He feels that despite several meetings, and information to back up make their case, the suggestions and concerns of the agents have not been reflected in the various drafts of the Customs Bill.
President of the Shipping Association of Jamaica, Trevor Riley shared the sentiment. He argued that the current proposed legislative changes were “backwards” and “do not in any way support the ostensible direction that we have charted”.
