{"id":818,"date":"2026-03-24T14:45:42","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T14:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/?p=818"},"modified":"2026-03-24T14:45:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T14:45:42","slug":"performance-audit-a-review-of-customs-trade-facilitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/?p=818","title":{"rendered":"Performance Audit \u2013 A Review of Customs Trade Facilitation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Auditor-General is pleased to announce that the report entitled <strong><em>Performance Audit of Customs Trade Facilitation<\/em><\/strong> was presented to the Legislative Assembly on March 03<sup>rd<\/sup>, 2026.&nbsp;&nbsp; It assessed the internal staffing, resources, and processes of the Customs Division as well as frontline procedures, facilities, and Customs Division\u2019s relations with stakeholders affecting imports, exports, and international travel to and from Montserrat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Background: <\/strong>The Division is a unit within the Montserrat Customs and Revenue Services (M.C.R.S.).&nbsp; The Division became a part of the M.C.R.S. through the M.C.R.S. (Enabling) Act No. 6 of 2017.&nbsp;&nbsp; It collects several taxes on cross-border trade (e.g., Consumption Tax, Import Duties, After Hours fees, royalties on mining exports). The M.C.R.S. (including Customs) contributes over 80% of the GOM\u2019s local revenues and is thus vital to public budgets &amp; the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Key Findings:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong><\/strong><strong>The Customs Division contributed to increases in G.O.M.\u2019s local revenues<\/strong>. During fiscal years 2017\/2018 to 2022\/2023, the Customs Division\u2019s revenues increased from E.C.$18.6 million to E.C.$23 million with a slight decline to $22.3 million during fiscal year 2023\/2024 and recovered to $24.4 million during fiscal year 2024\/2025.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong><\/strong><strong>Montserrat\u2019s international trade &amp; travel have declined. <\/strong>Since year 2014, Montserrat\u2019s inbound trade (including imports, and volumes of cross-border travellers, visitors, cruise-ship passengers, and tourists) has declined. Exports, which had increased since year 2014, also declined sharply since year 2022. By contrast, the rest of the Caribbean has recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching new all-time highs for travel\/trade\/tourism.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong><\/strong><strong>All searches of goods\/passengers are done physically. <\/strong>As they lack scanners and other equipment and a canine unit is no longer in place, Customs Officers do physical searches \/ examinations of imported goods at the airport, and of imported and exported goods at the sea port. The ASYCUDA system supports risk-profiling of imports to identify high-risk goods that need searching and lower-risk goods that do not need searching, but the Division does not fully use this capability. The only facility that possesses a scanner is the airport, and this is for outgoing flights only, which means that the Customs Division does by hand all of its searches of imports and incoming passengers\/baggage.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong><\/strong><strong>I.T. systems are used, but do not fully replace paper documentation. <\/strong>The Division uses two main I.T. systems: [a] the Automated System for Customs Data (ASYCUDA); and [b] the Customs Administration Data System (CADS). These systems are used globally, enabling such activities as automatic risk-profiling (e.g., goods, countries of origin\/transit, and importers\/exporters). However, our review found that these systems exist alongside, rather than replace, paper-based systems. Customs officers thus spend many hours per week entering the same data on both paper-forms and I.T. systems.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Key Recommendations:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong><\/strong><strong>Procure required equipment\/resources. <\/strong>The Customs Division should update its strategic planning and budgeting for the resources that are required to optimise its operations and service to customers. In turn, it should strengthen its efforts and the supporting data to justify funding requests: e.g., [a] the upgrading of existing Customs-related equipment\/tools, [b] the procurement of new items that it needs to bring the Division in line with 21st Century standards and customers\u2019 expectations, [c] the replacement of items that are no longer suitable or functioning and [d] incorporating renewable energy and power-storage in all of its operations. <strong><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong><\/strong><strong>Improve interdepartmental co-operation and co-ordination. <\/strong>The Customs Division should document its requests\/requirements that necessitate external stakeholders\u2019 participation. It should then advance proposals through the MOFEM and the Cabinet to achieve a whole-of-Government approach to improving Customs operations, customer-service, and trade-facilitation. Example #1: getting the timely support of DITES in resolving the reported I.T. issues. Example #2: getting the cooperation of the Ministry of B.U.I.L.T. to achieve long overdue upgrades at the airport to provide\/restore a dedicated area for Customs and cargo, enabling full-day service to the public. Example #3: having the scales at the Plymouth pier commissioned and put into full operation for the mutual and complementary benefits of the Port Authority and the Customs Division, while improving the accuracy of data collected for national statistics.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong><\/strong><strong>Reactivate the Canine Unit. <\/strong>The Division should also seek the return of the historically successful Canine Unit in partnership with the Royal Montserrat Police Service; this would greatly improve both the speed and the effectiveness of searches both of passengers and of cargo. For example, specially trained sniffer-dogs are particularly adept at identifying illegal drugs that manual\/human searches might fail to detect. Another advantage of a Canine Unit is that it can also quickly scan buildings, ships, boats, large volumes of cargo, and large numbers of passengers: e.g., when the ferry-boat\u2019s passengers disembark during the busiest periods of the year (Christmas and Montserrat Festival in December and St. Patrick\u2019s Festival during March).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The report in its entirety can be found at the Montserrat Public Library, on the National Audit Office Publications Page or by requesting an electronic copy from the National Audit Office, located upstairs Angelo\u2019s Complex, Brades. E-mail: <\/strong><a href=\"mailto:audit@gov.ms\"><strong>audit@gov.ms<\/strong><\/a><strong>; Telephone: (664) 491\/492 &#8211; 3460.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Auditor-General is pleased to announce that the report entitled Performance Audit of Customs Trade Facilitation was presented to the Legislative Assembly on March 03rd, 2026.&nbsp;&nbsp; It assessed the internal staffing, resources, and processes of the Customs Division as well as frontline procedures, facilities, and Customs Division\u2019s relations with stakeholders affecting imports, exports, and international [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001003,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001003"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":819,"href":"https:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818\/revisions\/819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}