THE FINDINGS of a parliamentary committee detailing a severe staff shortage at the Customs and Excise Division will come as little surprise to anyone affected by delays and backlogs at ports in this country.
According to the second report of the Joint Select Committee on National Security, the current staffing complement stipulated by law – 700 employees – is woefully inadequate given the "explosion of containerised cargo that occurred after 1990." Worse, the complement has not even been met – there are only 352 employees.
These employees have to man the 13 seaports, six transit sheds and two airports under the purview of the division.
"Human resource challenges do not permit each point of entry to be sufficiently manned at any given time," the report, tabled in the House of Representatives on Friday, states.
By way of example, it notes only three of 14 bays are utilised by officers at the Port of Port of Spain. This is unacceptable.
The reason a committee on national security had cause to examine Customs is the widespread concern about firearms entering the country.
The report details specific locations and instances in which thousands of rounds of ammunition and hundreds of firearms were intercepted by Customs.
In the past, complaints about delays have seen state officials say part of the reason is the need to check cargo coming into the country.
If cargo is being meticulously checked, clearly the process is not working, especially if we hold to the assumption that illegal entry of firearms has a direct bearing on current crime levels and not, for instance, existing stockpiles.
Either way, the severe staff shortage laid bare in the report would suggest the current checks are likely to be grossly inefficient. Who knows what is slipping through the cracks in a situation in which too few officers are being asked to inspect too many containers?
The problems can only have been exacerbated by rising imports. There are more brokers today than ever before. The quantity of goods being shipped has also reflected increased consumer demand as well as higher levels of manufacturing activity.
At the same time, like staffing, upgrades to port infrastructure have not kept apace. Our seeming inability to iron out the issue of scanners is a case in point. Add to this a volatile industrial relations environment, poor working relationships between business stakeholders and Customs officials, as well as frivolous and vexatious clamping down on certain types of smaller-scale commodities, authorised by archaic laws, and the challenges are worsened.
What is clear are the rising costs for businesses in the form of rent and demurrage, PTRs (product tracking and reporting requests), overtime, loss of perishable items and wasted time approaching multiple agencies and entities.
The ease of doing business is hampered, inflation increases, and consumer confidence falls.
Arguments have been put forward suggesting Customs, which falls under the Ministry of Finance, be placed elsewhere.
But moving the problem aroun
