Today, the Belize Customs and Excise Department joined their counterparts in the rest of the world in celebrating International Customs Day.
It is observed every year on January 26th, and it's an opportunity for customs officials and agencies to reflect on the work they do to maintain border security, facilitate trade, and collect revenue in a regulated and orderly manner.
This year's theme focuses on how the COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted world trade and commerce, and how the customs organizations of the countries have tried to mitigate the effects.
We spoke with a representative from Belize Customs and Excise, and Daniel Ortiz has that story:
Tricia Soberanis - OC, Customs Training Unit
"Annually, we celebrate International Customs Day, being a member of the World Customs Organization, since 2008. And they celebrate this day to not only recognize the date that the organization was established, but also to celebrate the work that customs officers do, and our purpose that we serve in our community. This year, it's being celebrated under the theme, "Customs, Bolstering Recovery, Renewal, and Resilience For a Sustainable Supply Chain."
This theme was chosen to reflect the current shared challenges that Customs organizations all over the world are facing. Currently, the biggest shared challenge all is the ongoing pandemic. Today, this senior customs officer provided a bit of insight as to how Belize Customs managed last year through the lockdowns, curfews, and the National State of Emergency. Like all other organizations, both private and public, the learning curve to deal with this new COVID reality was steep, and the adaption period was very short.
Tricia Soberanis
"When we underwent our shutdowns, like all the other administrations across the world, we were still expected to be there to facilitate that movement of goods coming into the country, so that we don't fall short in those areas."
"We have to be to adapt to the new way of how things need to be done, where we cannot be in close contact. We have to work from home in some cases. As part of an essential department, we still have to able to go out there and secure our borders, in terms of border jumpers and smuggling activities. The international airport where we're fully dependent on tourism, customs still has to be there to carry out our function. We collect about 50% of the government's recurrent revenue."
"In terms of revenue, it did affect us. Our revenue, because of the shutdown, decreased (by) about 70%, if I'm not mistaken. It was a rough time to be seeing our revenue that low."
But customs isn't only about revenue collection, it's also about quality control for the public's protection:
Tricia Soberanis
"For example with these medications that are coming in, we have these vaccines that are created for the COVID-19, and customs play a big role in ensuring that when vaccines come into the country, that they are legitimate, [that] they're coming from the proper sources so that the entire supply chain is secured. That is our role, not just when the goods arrive at customs, but also from where the raw materials and such are sourced."
"Other pharmaceuticals, food, every food item, every product that comes into the country, that they're coming from legitimate sources, and they're safe for our citizens to consume."
Of important note is that the Belize Government depends heavily on revenue collection from the Customs and Excise Department, as an essential government department. Tricia Soberanis, the Senior Customs officer, told us that the Department's mandate is to serve and protect, collect revenue for the Government, facilitate trade, and provide border security. The department also plays a role in protecting the environment and providing citizen safety and security.
|
