The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A Grand Bahama businessman yesterday said he had only suffered a “minor inconvenience” as a result of Customs’ systems being down for the past ten days.

Greg Langstaff, the Grand Bahama Brewing Company’s proprietor, told Tribune Business that the issues with the Electronic Customs Automated Services (eCAS) system meant he had a shipment waiting for clearance for ten whole days.

“Luckily, my freight forwarder did not charge me for storage, because they were understanding that it was not my fault at all. We put our paperwork in and Customs is just delaying it,” he added. “It was a minor inconvenience for me. Luckily, this is just a personal shipment and was not a business thing.

“But I’ve got some stuff stuck in Customs right now that I air-freighted in for a specific job, and it has delayed us for a little bit. My freight forwarder’s saying that he’s hoping to get it through by the end of today or tomorrow. So it’ll only be two days. But I’m sure it’s costing other businesses a lot more than me because they’re holding everything up.”

The eCas system was supposed to have been phased out yesterday and replaced with Click2Clear system, but that has been pushed back to September 1 due to the administrative and legal hurdles that need to be crossed relating to the Hawksbill Creek Agreement and Freeport’s over-the-counter bonded goods system.

Mr Langstaff yesterday queried whether the problems with the eCas system were related to the Click2Clear transition, and said: “I hope it isn’t specifically responsible for the eCas being down.

“The Click2Clear will certainly help a lot of people, but it won’t speed things up for businesses because I’m certain that they will either have to hire a person to do the job or have a broker, but that makes sense for the Government because they will be able to collect revenue a lot quicker.”

Tony Adderely, managing director of Expert Customs Brokers, said: “Obviously there have been some hiccups and hopefully they can be addressed and dealt with.”

Speaking to the impending Click2Clear implementation, he added: “It’s not that the licensees don’t want it to be introduced. A lot of them have some concerns about how it’s going to be introduced.

“So that is the primary concern of most of the licensees right now. It’s a matter of ensuring that the message is clear, so that everybody would understand what would be expected of the licensees.”

With the eCas system being down for ten-plus days, Mr Adderley said he is working with the old manual Customs processing system. He added: “Whenever the eCas system is down we end up having some problems here.

“We have been having some problems with the eCas system over the last week. It came up briefly and it went back down again, but these things go with automation from time to time. This time is the longest time it has ever been down, so there are some issues, but they are doing the best they can.”

Mr Adderley participated in a Zoom meeting on Wednesday, where he was told the eCAS issues are being addressed. He added: “Hopefully that will be done in the right manner starting with the legal authority to proceed with these new measures.

“I always believe that whichever law enforcement agency you’re dealing with, I believe that they are to be mindful to follow the law, and in this case it’s my understanding that that is something that may have to be addressed moving forward.”