Trade and Commercial Law Assessment - Honduras - Economic ...

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TRADE AND COMMERCIAL LAW ASSESSMENT DECEMBER 2004 HONDURAS Honduran Customs has made limited progress in some of these areas, but there is still much work to be done in the areas of personnel recruitment, training, and equipment. Most facilities are in need of refurbishing, and additional management and technical training would benefit the organization and promote greater understanding of the significance of Customs in the process of economic growth. Customs management also must institute a well-developed risk system to reduce the number of nonproductive, costly, and time-consuming physical examinations and the development of a compliance program to reward compliant traders. Also, the noncompliant portion of the trade community must be appropriately sanctioned. Honduran Customs is an integral part of the revenue authority, Dirección Ejecutiva de Ingresos (DEI), which was created in 1994. The director general of DEI is also the head of Customs, with a sub-director having operational responsibility for the agency. The Customs Service now has 725 permanent, full-time employees and more than 200 additional contract-reimbursable employees stationed at the free zones and warehouses. The main commercial processing sites are La Mesa International Airport (San Pedro Sula), Puerto Cortez, Toncontin (Customs inland facility), El Amatillo (Guatemala), El Poy (El Salvador), and Las Manos (Nicaragua). Secondary sites include Guasale, La Ceiba, San Lorenzo, Trujillo, and La Fraternidad. Although there are plans to modernize the agency and integrate with the Central American Common Market, there are still many issues to be addressed. Customs officers believe that the customs agency is improving and moving toward modernization, but this is not necessarily the prevailing view of the users. Users have indicated that the technical capacity in Customs is very low and that there is neither a career path for officers nor any incentive for officers to upgrade their knowledge. Donor training has little sustained benefit because the Customs workforce is replaced after each change in administration. There is no incentive to effect a change in procedures because there is no continuity within the organization. 1. Customs Management and Operations That Support Trade Facilitation a. Customs Management b. ♦ Customs has a reasonable organizational structure that incorporates several modern customs practices, such as post audit, post verification, and automation. Automated processes include electronic manifest, statistical gathering, analysis, a risk management system, and a valuation database facility. ♦ Customs is working with the Secretariat for Economic Integration for Central America, Secretaría de Integración Económica Centroamericana (SIECA), on integration measures. Honduras expresses great interest in fully implementing the union. However, it appears as of the time of this assessment that Honduras will not have achieved much progress toward this end by the January 2005 deadline. Customs Procedures ♦ There is a network for electronic declarations. The network is provided by a contract owned and operated by the Customs brokers association FENADUANAH (Federación Nacional de Agentes Aduaneros de Honduras). The association charges $8 per transaction. XI-5
TRADE AND COMMERCIAL LAW ASSESSMENT DECEMBER 2004 HONDURAS c. ♦ Management is seeking to create a new risk management system. Canadian Customs has provided training over the past 2 years with onsite visits and a 2-week course in Canada. Four analysts are currently assigned to the risk group and are performing some functions. However, Customs is still without official authority authorizing a risk management process. ♦ ♦ Post verification is well developed, with a staff of eight dedicated to Customs audits. This staff verifies approximately 3,600 transactions referred from field locations monthly and finds errors in classification, value and some nonrevenue issues. Many of the discrepant declarations are referred for penalty. There is still a high broker/trader error rate, and the post verification group has collected more than $500,000 in additional revenue in the first 8 months of this year. The Revenue Enforcement office performs customs and tax audits on company premises. ♦ There is a system for handling restricted goods. Prohibited and restricted goods are identified in directives sent to field personnel indicating what permits and licenses are required to process such goods. The directives appear to be extensive and are also provided via electronic mail. ♦ Automation efforts are improving. Puerto Cortez electronically receives more than 60 percent of goods by value, and within the past month Customs has started a pilot program to electronically receive vessel manifests. Other sites are manually inputting bill data into the automated system and matching and verifying bill of lading data with the declaration. ♦ ♦ Customs is developing adequate capacity in valuation. It has received some value training, including training from the WTO in 2003 and has a value database of approximately 40,000 records that provide values for reference purposes. The Value branch is staffed by a group of seven analysts, who are responsible for updating the database and providing expertise to the field and for post verification. A ruling process is applied for handling classification issues. Four analysts are assigned to the classification function, including the ruling process. The ruling process is only for classification issues but is said to be binding on all sites. Customs Processing Sites: Toncontin, Las Manos, and Puerto Cortez The Toncontin inland facility in Tegucigalpa provides an efficient operation with adequate hours, staff, systems, and security. The facility processes about 35,000 declarations annually for air and inward cargo arriving from Puerto Cortez and land borders. The offices are small, but the cargo examination facility is sufficient, with good security, including cameras, guards, and cold storage facilities. All shipments are weighted and filmed on arrival. The operator of the facility, Swissport, indicated that there is little pilferage of goods, because of secure controls. All personnel working for Swissport are screened and wear identification badges that specifically authorize them to work in certain areas. The office operates from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and also processes some courier shipments. Officials stated that 60 percent to 80 percent of shipments are released without examination, while 20 percent to 40 percent undergo physical examinations. Most goods are released within 2–4 hours of the filing of the declaration, XI-6
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