A ‘phobia’ after the recent Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) investigation is one of the purported reasons causing the deterioration of customs service at Port Klang, claimed the local freight forwarding industry.

In a complaint letter to government chief secretary Mohd Sidek Hassan, the Airfreight Forwarders Association of Malaysia (Afam) revealed that the customs service at Northport in Port Klang has seen a gradual decline since the MACC investigations in April.

"The agreed timeline of 90 minutes to process a Customs declaration form and the payment of duties and taxes have not been met despite this being part of the standard operating procedure.

NONE"The processing time can now take more than eight hours, and at times more than three days, which is severely impacting the industry as a whole and is a step back in a wrong direction, especially when it impacts one of the nation's main gateways," read the letter signed by the association's chairperson Walter Culas (left).

The delay will incur demurrage charges as the free storage period is limited to only three days, he said.

Culas cites two reasons senior customs officers have given for the deterioration of service:

1. Phobia after the recent MACC's investigation; and

2. About 70 percent of the Customs assessment officers being new and inexperienced in their duties as assessment officers.

In April this year, the MACC conducted 'Ops 3B' to investigate the loss of RM2.2 billion in duties, setting up a dragnet on the Customs Department and nabbing 62 people last month.

The MACC's relations with the customs service were severely strained when Selangor customs deputy director Ahmad Sarbani Mohamed was found dead at the MACC's Federal Territory headquarters in Kuala Lumpur on April 6.

Soon after the incident, Afam had written to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, appealing to him to interfere as the investigation had slowed down the customs' efficiency, thus affecting the business of its members.

In the latest letter dated yesterday, Culas also complained that, besides the delay in processing the Customs declaration forms, these were not fully cleared as 70 percent of the declarations have been subjected to further queries.

"This departs from the norm as it is a standard that only 10 percent of shipments are subject to further queries or inspections," he says.

Members of the association are also unhappy about the value uplift of up to 100 percent, especially for shipments originating from China, as there was no basis for this and the importer was then subjected to higher duties and taxes as a consequence, Culas claimed.

He asked Sidek to address these problems immediately as the unnecessary disruption of Customs procedure reflects badly on the image of the Customs Department as well as on Malaysia.