The Minister of Finance, Hon. Colm Imbert, has taken note of an article in the Daily Express with the patently erroneous headline “Gun Theft at Customs”, which goes on to erroneously state that security systems at a transit shed “at Customs” were found to be non-functional and illegal items have disappeared from sheds “at Customs”.

These misstatements give the false impression that the Minister of Finance said yesterday in Parliament that there is poor security at bonded warehouses or transit sheds owned and operated by the Customs and Excise Division, and, therefore, the Customs and Excise Division has been negligent.

The truth is the transit sheds that the Minister of Finance referred to are owned and operated by PRIVATE COMPANIES and it is because the Customs and Excise Division discovered that security systems were non-functional packages had disappeared, and record-keeping was poor at these PRIVATE facilities, that these PRIVATE transit sheds were closed, temporarily, until their owners remedied the defects in their security systems and records.