Closing of the Regional Workshop on Strengthening the Management, Monitoring and Control of Suspensive Regimes and Exemptions by ECCAS Customs
Participants make 15 recommendations to Customs Administrations and one to the CEMAC Commission and ECCAS
09 Mar, 2023
Athanase Ngassaki, Director of Cabinet of Jean-Baptiste Ondaye, Minister of Economy and Finance, closed, Thursday, March 9, 2023 in Brazzaville, the work of the Regional Workshop on strengthening management, monitoring and control suspensive regimes and exemptions by ECCAS Customs. 15 recommendations were made to customs administrations and one to the Commission of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS).
Organized by the Regional Center for Technical Assistance of the International Monetary Fund for Central Africa (Afritac-Centre), this Workshop, held face-to-face, was attended by 9 member countries from the Central African region, as well as regional institutions, namely, CEMAC and ECCAS.
At the end of the deliberations, the participants made the following recommendations to Customs Administrations: Direct the actions of the service according to the challenges and risks identified, taking into account their importance; take concrete measures to involve Customs in the decisions of the Government, in order to take into account its concerns; participate in the permit granting process; specify on the authorization the quantities, products, and determine the tariff headings; specify the nature of the products and the conditions of their use (Article 333 of the CEMAC Customs Code); inform the supervisory authorities and beneficiaries in a systematic way of the costs of tax expenditures (loss of revenue); limit the number of participants in the management of exemptions and suspensive regimes; empower and inform the various stakeholders in terms of the performance of their tasks (physical, documentary, deferred and post-clearance inspection) and facilitate their communication and cooperation; recall the tasks of the Customs business services and those of its IT services, according to their specific responsibilities; automate the management and monitoring of exemptions and suspensive regimes, in particular warehouses; automate the process of managing and monitoring direct removals (summary declarations); set up alerts and notifications to monitor deadlines; modernize and adapt, where applicable on the legal and regulatory level, the financial guarantee mechanism applicable to goods placed under a suspensive regime; establish the terms of application of Articles 79 and 333 of the new CEMAC Customs Code; document all processing procedures (from decision-making to implementation) and suggest acts of collaboration between the various departments concerned; make an inventory of all the texts, notes and instructions governing exemptions and suspensive regimes, with a view to compiling them; compile and publish the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in electronic format; develop and implement a specific action plan for the management and monitoring of exemptions and suspensive regimes, taking into account the recommendations of this report.
To the address of the ECCAS and CEMAC Commission
Make an inventory of all texts, notes and instructions governing exemptions and suspensive regimes, with a view to their compilation and publication in electronic format;
It should be noted that the Brazzaville Workshop, which opened on Monday March 6, 2023 and placed under the theme "Strengthening the management, monitoring and control of exemptions and suspensive regimes by Central African Customs", aimed to assess the strategies, practices and current challenges of Customs in terms of exemption and suspensive regimes, in order to identify and initiate measures that will enable them to strengthen their monitoring, control and management system.
The Communication Unit of the Ministry of Economy and Finance
