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Philippines
Thursday, March 28, 2024

Import pre-inspection pushed

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The Federation of the Philippine Industries has backed the proposal of  of former Customs commissioner Titus Villanueva to implement the modified selectivity system and pre-shipment inspection of imports from the port of origin to reduce graft and corruption at the Bureau of Customs.

FPI chairman Jesus Aranza agrees with former Commissioner that the solution to rampant corruption and technical smuggling was to minimize human intervention.

Aranza said the selectivity system and the pre-shipment inspection of imports under the Comprehensive Import Supervision Scheme would complement one another to minimize human intervention at Customs.

FPI suspected that the P200 billion in revenue losses due to smuggling operations could even be higher than as reported.

“Among the reforms already undertaken, the SS and CISS were very effective in reducing graft and corruption but, for one reason or another, they did not last long; the SS because the accredited importers lost interest in the system and CISS because the system was costly,” Arranza said.

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The selectivity scheme involves the classification of importers according to the channel where their shipments pass through.

Honest or green importers will have their importations pass through the green channel where physical examination of the cargoes and checks of import documents are no longer required.

The other importers or red importers whose shipments pass through the red channel are subject to all the Customs import requirements, such as physical examination of the cargoes, rigid verification of import documents, Customs alerting system, pre-audit of import entry declarations and other forms of safety check.

Green importers comprise 80 percent while red importers account for 20 percent of the total shippers in the Philippines.

Some importers lost interest in being accredited as green because their shipments still pass through the Customs personnel before the release, thus resulting in bribe or facilitation money.

Under the CISS now known as ISS, only shipments of red importers are subject to the scheme. The smaller import coverage will justify its revival because of lower cost Importations under ISS were graft-and-corrupt free as proven before.

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