Supreme Board of Inspection critical of slack customs inspection procedures

The Supreme Board of Inspection (NIK) blames custom officers for the 5.1% decrease in projected customs revenues to over zl. 7 billion. In its opinion the officers are not fulfilling their duties. "There is a lack of an organizational solution, which would minimize self-styled and casual verification of declared customs value by importers. The above discrepancies give rise for custom administration corruption," says the NIK report. NIK reminded customs of the European Commission (EC) orders to develop post-import inspections. NIK also proposes the development of the so-called TWC system (Computer System of Gathering Custom Values) installed in 1995. It allows custom officers to compare invoices from other custom clearances when similar or the same products were cleared. The system does not work properly because data is being transported on diskettes since there is no network. NIK also suspects that customs officers reports sent to the Central Customs Office (GUC) are not totally true. (Rzeczpospolita, page B1)