PBA party-list Rep. Jericho Nograles on Sunday said the Bureau of Customs must immediately fix its online system glitches with alternative processes to protect importers from unnecessary storage and demurrage fees.
Nograles, a committee on ways and means chairperson, said importers and the business sector at large should not be punished with additional storage and demurrage fees because of BoC’s online system failure.
This stemmed following a BoC announcement that its online services bogged down, thus preventing containers and shipments from being released on time.
“While the online system has sped up the processes in Customs, we have received numerous complaints that when the system bogs down, the unscrupulous fixers begin their trade,” Nograles said.
“Those who complained that when the online system fails, some officials dangle the additional storage and demurrage fees as a reason to force importers to pay grease money to prioritize release of shipments,” he added.
Such incident should serve as a lesson for the BoC and encourage the bureau to create new alternative systems within the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act, he said.
“I see back-up protocols are in order to stop the corrupt practices of some scalawags,” he said.
“Glitches and downtime are expected in an online system. And such conditions should have a corruption-free protocol that would not cost importers additional storage fees and demurrage. Whose fault is the downtime, anyway? The bureau? The internet service provider? Definitely not the importers. Time-sensitive transactions allows another possible scenario of corruption in Customs,” he added.
Since BoC is dependent on a single internet service provider, it must consider alternative providers, he said.
“Naturally, importers would have to pass on the extra charges to their customers, who will pass it on to the consumers. In the end, it is the Filipino people who would suffer most just because of bad internet services. I ask the BoC for a little more malsakit in solving a problem as simple as an offline ISP,” he said.