Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Sunday hoped that the step towards establishing paperless governance in the country would make a strong move quickly in a bid to ensure more transparency and accountability, reports UNB.
“We’re looking forward to paperless trade or e-commerce and we’re also looking forward to paperless governance. Though paperless governance is a long-way walk at the moment, but I hope it’ll make a strong move pretty quickly,” he said.
The Finance Minister was addressing a mobilisation seminar on ‘Deployment of ASYCUDA and Single Window in Bangladesh Customs’ as the chief guest at a city hotel.
The Chittagong Customs will introduce ASYCUDA World, the most recently automated system for customs data designed by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad), from July 1 on pilot basis.
Later, it will be extended to other customs houses and stations in phases.
It is expected that with the introduction of this new ASYCUDA world system, which is already in use over 90 countries, the taxation activities would become easier and it would help ensure transparency.
The wide implementation of an ASYCUDA World system, including business-to-government and government-to-government transactions has a significant impact on the development of e-government driven reforms.
The implementation of ASYCUDA World in general means greater tax revenue collection and lower transaction costs, making it a showcase for e-government. A secondary benefit is its effectiveness in combating fraud, corruption and illicit trafficking, as it gives customs authorities in different countries their first-ever tool for working together online.
Organised by the National Board of Revenue (NBR) and supported by Unctad, Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan and Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Muhammad Faruk Khan spoke on the occasion as special guests. NBR chairman M Ghulam Hossain presided.
NBR member (Customs, bond, export and IT) Md Nasir Uddin and regional coordinator for Asia and Pacific ASYCUDA Programme of UNCTAD Renaud Massenet also spoke on the occasion while Customs Adviser of Unctad David Wright made a power-point presentation on the ASYCUDA World system.
Mentioning that ASYCUDA World is a usual system with the development of technology, Muhith hoped that this programme would bring a good result for the stakeholders concerned.
“Good results not only mean collection of revenue, but also mean hassle-free passage of goods, which is also very important,” noted the Finance Minister.
Muhith said that the system would mark the end of Pre-shipment inspection (PSI) system, which had both good and bad sides.
Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Muhammad Faruk Khan expressed his optimism that with the introduction of this system, country’s regional and international trade would increase manifold alongside increased revenue generation as well as the country would be able to move ahead keeping pace with the world.
Mentioning that a new developed era has been created in the history of Bangladesh with a significant rise in revenue collection over the last four years, Faruk Khan said, “We could now show courage to build Padma Bridge of our own resources due to the much increase in revenue collections.”
Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan said with the introduction of ASYCUDA World, the customs operations would be paperless, all the stakeholders including shipping agents, C&F agents and Freight Forwarders agents would be benefited with the expansion of hassle-free trade and commerce.
NBR chairman Ghulam Hossain said to have a better outcome of this system, the stakeholders, especially the BGMEA and BKMEA, would have to provide necessary information like utilisation permission to the customs.
“There’s an absence of adequate willingness to share information at the moment…We’re talking about transparency, but we’re not sharing information,” he added.
Stressing the need for having an integrated system at the NBR, Ghulam Hossain, also the Secretary of the International Resources Division (IRD), said fragmented NBR is weak, but integrated NBR is strong.
