Enhancing Public Availability of Customs Information
In the Islamic Countries
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officers. The ADR provisions are covered under Subsections 192A to 192K of the Customs Act,
1969; and NBR SRO.
Section 193 of the Customs Act 1969 requires the Commissioner (Appeal) to dispose any appeal
within two years. And, Section 196 requires that the Appellate Tribunal to dispose of the appeal
within four years from the date of its receipt. If the appeal is not disposed of within the time
specified in subsection (7), the appeal shall be deemed to have been allowed by the Appellate
Tribunal.
Benefits, Challenges, and Lessons Learned
Benefits
Stakeholders stated the following benefits from the increased public availability of customs
information:
i. Stakeholders’ access to information required for compliance with customs rules,
regulations, and decisions empowered both the officials of relevant border agencies, as
well as general traders and the public.
ii. Increased customs compliance and expedited customs clearance.
iii. Increased transparency, clarity, and predictability of customs procedures.
iv. Improved integrity due to reduced levels of discretionary power of the customs officials
v. Reduced workload of customs and border agencies officials in terms of clarifying same
rules, regulations, and information to several stakeholders multiple times.
vi. Easy and all time access to relevant customs rules, regulation, procedures, and forms and
documents for the traders resulted in reduced trade costs.
Challenges
According to stakeholders, the main challenge encountered in the implementation of public
availability of Customs information is to ensure effective coordination among the number of
border agencies involved in export/import processes. Not all agencies are prepared to the same
level to implement Customs information dissemination to the public. These organizations are
mostly working in a disjointed manner in this regard. The pace of implementing the information
dissemination mechanism also varies among different border agencies based on their specific
priorities. The technical readiness of different related organizations is not at the same level, so
execution of a coordinated effort for the effective implementation of public availability of
customs information is the main challenge faced by the Bangladesh border agencies.
Another challenge is to bring the required changes in the acts, rules, and regulations to provide
a legal basis for the implantation of the Customs information dissemination system. Developing
the required technical capacities and trained human resources for the implementation of the
Customs information system is another challenge faced by stakeholders. Finally, allocating
necessary budget for supporting the implementation of the Customs information dissemination
system considering various organizational priorities is another constraint identified by the
border agencies.