BRADES, Montserrat, August 30th 2013 – The Customs and Excise Division of the Montserrat Customs and Revenue Service (MCRS) has just completed another cycle of staff training for the 2013/14 financial year. 

According to Comptroller of Customs Peter White, this round of training was conducted in the evenings to allow for all members of staff to be able to attend. 

“As most of the resource people for the sessions came from agencies external to customs and were only available in the evenings or were only able to make their presentations once it was important that we ensure that all members of staff would benefit,” White explained. “The Customs Department like many other government department and agencies is much smaller than what it was 15 years ago and a large percentage of the staff have less than five years of experience in the department. It is therefore necessary that we have regular staff training to keep them up-to-date with all the developments locally, regionally and internally with regards to border control, revenue, trade, movement of people and movement of services.”

“In addition, there are a number of new legislation and regulations which we need to ensure they are aware of and are enacting. Also, MCRS will have to play its part in the drive to develop Montserrat with such things as a new port and the reintroduction of Duty Free Shopping. Regular training is important to allow for common interpretation and consistence in application of local laws and regulations. We are great full to the resource persons who gave of their time freely and came out to import their knowledge to us.

The Summer courses ran from July until the end of August and began with the Royal Montserrat Police Service provided training on the use of firearms and ammunition identification. Other sessions included the education on the Customs Management Act with focus on granting clearances, Customs responsibilities under the Proceeds of Crime Act, provisions for Duty Free operations in Montserrat, Customs responsibilities under the Proceeds of Crime Act, The role of customs in the CSME & OECS Economic Union and International Trade.

Facilitators included Financial Services Commissioner Dulcie James, Director of Regional Affairs and Trade Claude Hogan, and senior Customs Officials.

The MCRS head said the staff training schedule runs until March 2014.

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