The General Authority of Customs (GAC) has reached 95 percent Qatarisation in its human resources, representing a rise of two percent compared to last year, according to the Authority's report. GAC has also completed 21 projects out of the 54 approved as being strategic to accomplishing its vision.
The projects include the study of the delegation of powers, which aims to apply wise governance within the Authority and a study of the organisational structure and specialisations which will enhance the functional structures of the entity, as well as a plan to normalise the corporate culture, resulting in strengthening the administrative and financial regulatory systems and targeting 40 employees to complete diploma programme in customs science in order to secure the flow of administrative requirements of resources and equipment, the report indicates.
The report outlines the GAC achievements in the past one year, which include strengthening human resources, techniques and administration as well as cooperation with other entities inside and outside the country. Within the period, the GAC and the Qatar Chamber have signed a memorandum of understanding to implement rehabilitative training programmes for the customs brokers, resulting in the evolution in the number of customs brokers and their entering to the labour market in all customs ports. The partnership has led to 400 percent increase in the number of courses and 150 percent rise in the number of qualified participants.
The Authority has also upgraded all control and analysis systems as well as the remote control inspection equipment while the picture analysis systems have seen notable enhancements, which in turn raise the logistics standards of the Customs authority. The GAC also released a manual explaining the essence of the International Customs Cooperation that explains the standard procedures and sets the quality standards. The Authority aims to achieve the institutional structure, determine future technical requirements, renovate the technical infrastructure and modernise the database system to develop standards that meet the latest global practices for the of Abu Samra border post.
Besides, the GAC aims to update the customs valuation database, improve the provided services, develop e-services and enhance the process of custom clearance and licensing procedures in order to increase the level of services provided to the public. The GAC also plans to switch the manual procedures applied by the customs to an electronic version, amend the time of release according to the processes approved by the global customs and set up an alternative information centre for road transport. The Customs authority also aims to launch a trial phase for the committed economic partners and run a feasibility study to evaluate joining the customs agreements of the World Customs Organization in coordination with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
In its future plans, the GAC will execute strategic projects, which include bridging the knowledge map for the authority, establishing a modern centre to meet the needs of theoretical and practical training, presenting a project to build a customs lab and setting up an electronic custom inquiry platform. Other strategic projects include applying the authority's strategy in combating money laundering and in the customs tariff. The strategy also includes coordinating and following up with Qatar Public Prosecution and courts in order to set up a customs prosecutions department that would handle customs cases and ensure that the agreement between the committed economic partners is met.
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