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Jamaica Customs Agency is now under increased scrutiny after Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Tuesday heard that a number of breaches which resulted in financial exposure of more than $2 billion and uncollected revenues of more than $664 million have not been addressed.
This prompted Government Member of Parliament Moreland Wilson to ask for an independent body to look into the deficiencies.
Allegations made by a whistleblower had triggered a special probe by the Auditor General's Department of the Jamaica Customs Agency's private bonded warehouses and bunkering operations.
The audit covered the period from 2016 to 2021.
Mr. Wilson said it was alarming that major loopholes highlighted at Jamaica Customs still existed.
"This is very worrying and we should at some point develop some mechanism to strengthen what we have, because despite your looking at this report, you guys have done some things very well...but in this one, we have seen where we have massive risk and exposure to the Jamaican people and where our tax dollars may be leaking and we cannot verify whether it is or not because the data is just not there," he argued.
PAC Chairman Julian Robinson noted that of all the issues raised by the Auditor General's Department, only one or two had been resolved, while the "majority of them remain in view".
"The PAC is interested in ensuring that those issues are resolved, so I would want the Auditor General to report back to the PAC in a three-month period, having gone back to Customs on these specific outstanding matters that remain in view," he advised.
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