Shelly-Ann Thompson, Staff Reporter
Danville Walker (centre), commissioner of customs, addresses customs brokers who were angered earlier this year because a wall was erected inside Customs House, downtown Kingston, preventing them from accessing specific areas of the building. Walker has just completed three months on the job. - File
DANVILLE WALKER, new commissioner of Jamaica customs, has survived at least three protests and much verbal abuse in his three-month tenure.
In an interview with The Sunday Gleaner, Walker, who has seen Jamaica through several turbulent general elections and formerly of the Jamaica Defence Force, says he will not back down until customs brings in the revenue it should for the country.
"I enjoy this job. It's interesting, it's wide, it's varied," he quips.
"There are lots of little challenges, but it's one of those jobs that when you improve the place, you see the results immediately. I like that," he adds.
The hard-talking commish says among the changes he has implemented, advances in the speedy processing of motor vehicles tops his list of achievements.
The number of days it takes to process motor-vehicle documents has been reduced to a turnaround of close to 90 per cent. Documents are being processed within eight hours of being submitted, he boasts.
"We have a new unit and documents are being processed faster," says Walker, who was sent to customs after giving up the post of director of elections under controversy caused by revelation of his dual-citizenship status.
tougher stance
The commissioner says he will be taking a tougher stance against persons who insist on cheating customs, and the country, of revenue.
Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Audley Shaw, in June, labelled customs as "a hotbed of corruption".
Shaw then said, at a Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica annual economic forum in Kingston, "Private-sector firms and their customs brokers have colluded with customs officers in robbing the Government of tax revenue."
Walker says this must change.
"They love to say, whenever we find a container with goods in it undeclared, we forgot the invoice. We are not trying to hide the goods, but we 'forgot the invoice'.
"My only answer to them is, forgetting the invoice carries a price. It is going to be a breach, and the breach is going to be harshly enforced. Maybe I'll give you some time to pay. But I am not going to entertain these stories of people forgetting an invoice."
His list of cleaning up customs also includes solving the perennial problems of the layman taking a long time to clear goods at the wharf.
He wants to erase the popular phrase, 'it takes all day to clear a barrel at the wharf' out of the minds of Jamaicans.
Among the solutions is the implementation of systems to reduce the likelihood of errors, making the procedure more transparent.
"An importer should be able to log on to a website and see his lodgement (goods) and see who exactly has it and where it is."
The customs department is now working towards this, says Walker, but he notes that some of the blame for clearance delays must also be laid at the feet of customs brokers.
"When people complain that it takes a long time to get things off the wharf, the problem is often that the brokers bring in entries late and also bring them with errors," he explains.
making customs profitable
However, Walker contends that making customs profitable takes collaboration between himself and his staff. Despite the protests and snickering, Walker says people are warming up to him and the relationship has now reached an "excellent" level.
"People recognise I have not come here just to sit on a ship and enjoy the scenery as it goes by. I want to plot a course for customs that when the course is over, it's a First World, modern institution with a fully integrated port-community system, and to as far an extent as possible, paperless."
shelly-ann.thompson @gleanerjm.com.
