The Minister of Finance, Hon. Colm Imbert, MP, has noted commentary in the media regarding a recent disclosure that the Customs and Excise Division scans SEVENTEEN PERCENT (17%) of containers entering Trinidad and Tobago at official ports of entry.
This statistic has led to further commentary from business spokespersons who have complained about the current level of examination of containers by Customs, resulting in an editorial in today’s Daily Express calling for righteous anger to be directed at the Ministers of Finance and commentary in other newspapers.
However, if the Express had checked the July 2021 American Journal of Transportation, it would have discovered the following published data:
“Customs and Border Protection (CBP) currently scans 3.7% of the roughly 11 million containers entering the US each year. Only about 1% of that total, or 104,000 containers, are checked at ports overseas. Similar figures can be found for the EU. Around 1.5% of all cargo arriving to EU ports is scanned”
In other words, Trinidad and Tobago scans FIVE (5) times as many containers entering our ports than the USA and ELEVEN (11) times more than the EU.