Uganda conducted a time release study in 2010 to determine how long it takes to clear goods at the border. Stakeholders (customs brokers, the Ministry of Agriculture, the export promotion board, and transporters) were involved from the outset. The study was conducted at selected border stations; data were collected over seven days, using a question- naire developed for the purpose. The WCO time release study online software was used to analyze the results.
Although initially there was suspicion among the customs staff and other actors (especially customs brokers), the working committee man- aged to abate their fears by emphasizing the potential for positive out- comes for all involved in clearing goods. Data collection took longer than expected, because of lack of funding. There were technical problems as a result of a slow network connection to the WCO online software.
The report on the findings provided Uganda customs with baseline information on the time taken to clear goods out of customs and identified potential areas of improvement in the border-clearance pro- cess. It resulted in reengineering of customs procedures. Following completion of the study, the following changes were made:
• A joint border management was established at Malaba and Katuna. • An accreditation process to transporters and clearing agents was
initiated.
• Twenty-four-hour-a-day operations were initiated at some customs stations in order to improve service delivery.
• Customs put in place some initiatives to improve the system, but no time release studies have been conducted since then to measure their effect.
150 Trade and Transport Corridor Management Toolkit • intervention by other agencies
• goods released by customs
• removal of goods from the border post premises.
It is advisable to combine the time release study with monitoring of the physical movement of the means of transport.
A time release study achieves the following:
• It yields quantitative data for monitoring the average time between the arrival of the goods and their release into the economy by each interven- ing agency.
• It identifies the external constraints affecting the border release of goods (such as the granting of authorization or permits, the application of other laws, and inspections by agencies).
• It provides the basis for identifying administrative measures for stream- lining the clearance process in border posts at the corridor level.
Dedicated border performance monitoring. Time release studies are useful for most corridor projects. Dedicated monitoring can be more useful to project design. In such cases, one or all corridor border posts are monitored, and detailed data are collected to measure performance and identify bottlenecks. Such monitoring is widely used in Africa; it has also been employed in Southeast Asia.
Performance measurement at border-crossing points
• captures information on import and export commercial traffic move- ments through border facilities on both sides
• registers the times it takes goods to cross the border, making a distinction between physical movement and the time it takes to process documents while goods are stationary
• notes any irregular events that may affect the time of both of the above. Examples could include processes that are too fast or too slow, including congestion; atypical flows; and improperly completed, incomplete, or missing documents.
Two data sheets are often used, one to track the movement of goods from the moment a truck joins a queue at the border or enters the customs yard to the moment it leaves the customs control area and a second to track the time it takes to complete various stages of the document clearance pro- cess. The second data sheet can be attached to any documents, so that each officer involved in processing the documents can record the time he or she starts and completes the assigned task. Where processes are computerized,
Border Management in a Corridor 151 this information can be retrieved as and when needed. (Module 1 discusses
the design of corridor observatories.)
Data capture points may differ, depending on border specificities. Table 5.3 identifies some of the common points.
Surveyors would have to be positioned at locations where they can easily capture the required data, without much intrusion. A distinction should also be made between time taken in document processing (while the vehicle is parked in one location) and the time for physical movement (when the truck has to move to a different location for weighing or scanning, for instance). During data collection, care has to be taken that date and time formats are consistently captured. Cleaning up data can be onerous and introduce more errors. Table 5.4 provides examples of data on physical movement.
The last column can be valuable to interpreting and understanding the observed patterns. For instance, at some border posts, foreign trucks are not allowed to enter the country. In such instances, cargo is transloaded from one truck to another. Transloading can complicate the monitoring process, especially when the number of trucks is different (that is, goods from one large truck are transloaded onto two or more smaller trucks or vice versa). TABLE 5.3 Data Capture Points at Border Posts
Position Time to record
Place where truck queues to cross border • Start of border-crossing process Place where goods arrive • Entry of vehicle into country
• Initial customs registration Place where physical examinations take place
(physical inspections may or may not take place during transshipments)
• Start of inspection • End of inspection Place where agencies other than customs processes
import documents (if any)
• Start of processing • End of processing
Place where customs signs release note • Time when release note is signed (and importer is free to move goods inland)
Place where truck exits gate of customs control area • End of border-clearance process
TABLE 5.4 Examples of Data Collected at Border Post
License plate of truck Country of registration Name of importer Arrival at back of queue (date and
time)
Move to examination bay
(date and time)
Notes (if any) 987-654Y Botswana Alpha Mines 05/11/13 19:20 05/11/13 20:05
152 Trade and Transport Corridor Management Toolkit Monitoring the transloading process can be time consuming and require several observers. Where customs declarations can be submitted in advance of the goods’ arrival at the border, care must be taken to distinguish between goods arriving under such a regime and goods whose clearance starts only when the goods arrive (box 5.2).
Data Analysis
Border-clearance time is a common indicator in most corridor projects. The focus should be on the average and distribution of border-crossing time, but other measures should also be included, as outlined below.
Time to cross the border. Both time release studies and dedicated border assessments can provide information that helps target border interventions to improve overall corridor performance. The procedural requirements that have to be complied with to clear goods as they move through a corridor can be major sources of delays. Analysis of the data therefore focuses on both the mean time and the distribution around the mean, which is probably more important than average time. Lack of reliability increases logistics costs, because shippers have to carry more inventories, suffer stock-outs and disruptions to operations, or make emergency shipments at higher costs. More important from a logistics costs perspective, the unpredictability of clearance times around the mean can reveal patterns of behavior by both official agencies and importers, including discretionary or corrupt practices. On some corridors, it is necessary to ask questions and collect data on informal payments to speed the clearance process.
Cost to cross the border. Various types of cost are incurred at borders in addition to normal duties. These costs include direct costs, such as user fees (public and private), cost of transloading goods, where required, compliance costs to meet regulatory requirements, parking charges, and various types of insurance (vehicle, bond, goods liability, etc.). During project design, it is important to estimate all costs, as one objective of corridor interventions at the border is to lower them.
On some corridors informal fees must be paid to expedite the clear- ance of cargo. Informal payments associated with border clearance have traditionally not been captured well in the design of corridor projects. However, they can be significant and are worth assessing. A survey of traders on the India-Bangladesh border found that the majority of exporters made speed money payments of 1–3 percent of the shipment value (World Bank 2013). These informal costs are passed on to shippers,
Border Management in a Corridor 153 BOX 5.2