Introduction
The State of Catdom has indulged in improving strategies for both imports and exports. Certainly, the revenues generated by taxes, import duties, and customs duties induce a large impact on the growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The current custom department has become ineffective and inefficient that jeopardizing the accuracy of functionality within the department. The potential issues that reduce the efficiency of SCA include implementation of outdated technology, lack of transparency and consistency, distrusted environment, dysfunctional morals, and empowerment of corrupt officers in the customs agency. The Ministry of Finance is concerned about the functionality of State customs agency (SCA) as the Ministry is aware of corruption in the SCA (Willems, Tagliaferri, & Theodorakis, 2016).
The prime objective of the present report is to address the issues identified by the State customs agency regarding corruption. The Ministry of Finance appointed an accredited integrity investigator for investigation of issues and then reported the findings along with the recommendation (Saeidi, Sofian, Saeidi, & Parisa, 2015). The report is based on complete findings after having a discussion with the active members of the State custom agency regarding the working process and development programs. The report concludes that considerable corruption exists in the SCA and if it is not eradicated promptly, it may cause ramification for citizens, government, and State customs agency. During the investigation, the director general of SCA did not show any concern regarding the existence of considerable corruption in the SCA (McLinden, Fanta, Widdowson, & Doyle, 2010). The present report is based on an evaluation of findings through revised Arusha declaration and tools and resources provided by the World Customs Organization. The Ministry of Finance and senior cabinet ministers of Catdom are provided with a comprehensive strategy along with the suitable recommendations.
Tools and Resources of WCO
The World Customs Organization, abbreviated as WCO, is a center known for custom expertise all around the world. World Customs Organization (WCO) provides guidelines and support to the developing countries with the purpose of ensuring corruption elimination in the customs system. The WCO is currently covering 98% world trade from the areas of East and South Africa, South and North America, the Middle East, and Australia. WCO represents some tools and resources to fight against corruption in trade and custom related activities. The Arusha Declaration, Revised Arusha Declaration, WCO model code of ethics and conduct, revised integrity development, and Maputo has the key role in enabling the WCO to fight against corruption (Wulf & Sokol, 2005).
Findings from the Revised Arusha Declaration
Revised Arusha Declaration’s emphasis on the importance of the national custom integrity program. According to the Revised Arusha Declarations, such programme ought to ensure accountability of specified key factors and enforce the whole administration to develop the sustainable and completely comprehensive action plan for integration that brings all custom administration, government officers, and businessmen at the single platform of “fight against corruption.” According to the Revised Arusha Declarations, customs administration cannot win against corruption unless all public is united and agreed to end corrupt systems (Cheng, 2010).
Strategy with Recommendations
After reading the whole scenario, several activities are identified that can be entitled as corrupt activities in custom. For instance, SCA administration is supporting favoritism as much recruitment was not merit-based. The salary system is also not good. The administration is taking bribes and financial advantages. Other than all these, another major issue with the custom system is that many employees or managerial staff of the organization is involved in financial frauds and data manipulation as they hide revenue and funds to get their benefits and advantages. The inefficiency of the management system is supporting the promotion of corruption. Thus, taking in mind all these corruption-related activities and knowledge extracted from Revised Arusha Declarations and WCO tools and resources for anti-corruption a new strategy is recommended for SCA that will support SCA to end up corruption (Wcoomd.org, 2019; Cascarino, 2007).
The strategy is an integrity action plan that will relate to the key stakeholders (including management, government, customers, and business sector) of SCA. According to this strategy, we will first identify the corruption-related activities in the customs process (International Monetary Fund, 2011). Then we will spread awareness about these corruption-related activities along with possible remedies and action plans. After this, we will again detect the specific kind of corruption-related activities in the custom to take legal actions against the responsible entities (Campos & Pradhan, 2007).
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Development of Rules and Regulations
In the State customs agency (SCA), new rules and regulations will be introduced at each level. Regulations will relate to the amendments to the law concerning corruption, financial frauds, and other crimes. Rules and regulations will be implemented at all levels starting from the bottom level to the top-level management. In accordance with the new rules and regulations, each member will have to share information about his/her income (wages/salaries), property, and other incentives given by the State customs agency (SCA) (McLinden, Fanta, Widdowson, & Doyle, 2010). Furthermore, rules and regulations will describe how future processes will be done and who will take responsibility for what tasks. Rules and regulations will also discuss the recruitment process, incentive rules, disciplinary practices, and ethical considerations.
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Training and Development session
According to this strategy, a training and development session is recommended to the SCA. In the training and Development session, the administration will be provided with information about the need for anti-corruption efforts. In the training program, trainers and experts will discuss how employees and management can work to eliminate corruption from customs. They will discuss how corruption is influencing the overall financial outcomes of SCA and causing to impact on the image of SCA in society. Furthermore, training about IT communication system, new database management, and financial reporting system will also be provided to the relevant employees only (Vickery, Jayaram, Drogea, & Calantone, 2003).
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IT System Improvement
The strategy recommends that SCA needs improvement in the IT system. The new database is required to be developed for electronic data exchange in the organization. A new up-to-date IT system will ensure a strong connection in the whole IT network. Clients will also be given access to the limited connections to download documents and make transactions through electronic payment systems. It will also help the ministry of finance to set the same rate sets for customs duties. According to this strategy, the administration will use online systems for most of their process, thus State customs agency (SCA) can reduce bribe and financial advantage system (Kitts, Freed, & Vrieze, 2000). Furthermore, the IT system will allow communication at each level to ensure the integration of the whole organization.
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Internal Audit
Internal audit is the basic requirement of the SCA to fight against corruption. According to the analysis, SCA administration is also facing problem-related to revenue leakage (Saeidi, Sofian, Saeidi, & Parisa, 2015). Some employees and managerial staff are involved in this financial fraud or corruption. Even some of these are stealing funds provided by the government for the development of a custom system. Internal audit will check out the financial reports for the fiscal year to check out whether information about all financial activities and transitions are recorded in the financial reports or not. Internal audit will help SCA reduce financial frauds, financial data manipulations, and revenue leakage (Cascarino, 2007).
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Investigation
Now at the end, the last recommendation in this strategy is to ensure investigation and monitoring system. The integrated and highly effective monitoring system will be developed to collect maximum information about the activities done by the employees and managers in the organization. An investigation will be made into case any kind of corruption found in the organization. As a result of this investigation, responsible entities will face legal consequences. Crime prevention and internal affairs division will deal with the responsible persons.
Conclusion
In the end, it can be concluded that to improve the quality services of Catdom Customs department, Ministry of finance is required to take initiatives. The present report proposed strategies to be implemented in the department for efficient and effective outcomes. The strategy of remuneration can somehow reduce the morale of workers, but it could be effective for the growth of imports and exports of the company. The new methods to motivate the workers are to improve the performance of services and reduce the demoralization of the workers in the SCA. The dismissal of corrupt members from the department could lead to improved performance of the whole system. The implementation of new rules and regulations will reduce the chances of corruption in the department. The internal auditing is supposed to be an effective strategy to reduce corruption in the department. The training and development sessions on an annual and monthly basis will enable the workers to improve working processes. Proper investigation sessions will be designed to investigate criminal activities and legal actions against corruption. The workers caught indulging in corrupt activities will undergo thorough investigation and records of investigations will be kept in the records of online databases. The proposed strategies in the report are supposed to be effective in diminishing criminal activities and corruption.
References
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Cascarino, R. (2007). Internal Auditing: An Integrated Approach. Juta and Company Ltd. Retrieved 2019
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Wcoomd.org. (2019). Overview. Retrieved from www.wcoomd.org: http://www.wcoomd.org/en/topics/integrity/overview.aspx
Willems, A., Tagliaferri, M., & Theodorakis, N. (2016). Corruption Risk Assessment Tools in Customs and Trade. Retrieved from www.oecd.org: https://www.oecd.org/cleangovbiz/Integrity-Forum-16-Willems-Tagliaferri-Theodorakis.pdf
Wulf, L. D., & Sokol, J. B. (2005). Customs Modernization Handbook. World Bank Publications.
