The Government decides to create an Inter-Agency Target Center and mobile groups at the Ministry of Finance to tackle corruption at the customs

Following the proposal of the Ministry of Finance, the Government adopted a decision on June 8 to create an Inter-Agency Target Center and 20 mobile groups to fight corruption at the customs. Also, mandatory photo and video coverage of customs procedures was adopted.

The Ministry of Finance and the Government have been pursuing systemic reforms at the customs aimed to overcome corruption, to fight smuggling and customs rules violations, to automate the customs services, to simplify customs procedures etc.

In line with these objectives, the Ministry of Finance has already implemented a procedure for the automated distribution of customs declarations, prepared a draft law on authorized economic operators and the concept of the automated system of customs procedures “Single Window”. All these procedures and regulations were unanimously approved by the Government. Next steps in this area are the creation of the Inter-Agency Target Center and joint mobile groups at the Ministry of Finance as well as the implementation of photo and video coverage of customs procedures.

The Inter-Agency Target Center will be permanently coordinating the activities of 20 joint mobile groups which are in charge for the prevention and detection of customs rules violations. Participants of the Center include representatives of the State Fiscal Service, State Border Protection Service and the National Police.
The analytical group of the Center will be pursuing analytical and investigating activities to detect risky transactions at the customs and will be passing relevant information to the mobile groups which shall act in the 24/7 mode to react rapidly on illegal actions.

Also, mandatory photo and video coverage of customs procedures and other public control procedures will be incrementally implemented. Photo and video coverage will be permanent (i.e., it will be covering procedures at all stages), informative (all procedures will be commented by employees in charge) and available for insight and control. At the final stage it is planned to attach the video material to the respective customs declarations using the tools of the automated customs clearance system of the State Fiscal Service.

Thus, the new regulations are aimed to prevent corruption (attempted by the customs authorities as well as by business), increase the transparency and efficiency of the customs control and other kinds of public control as well as to remove negative trends currently observed at the customs.

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