Monrovia – The Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) made a record-breaking US$15 million revenue collection at the Freeport of Monrovia, through its Customs Department, in the month of May.
This level of collection has never been achieved in a single month in the history of revenue collection at the Freeport.
The achievement is the result of the ongoing closing of many leakages and revenue protection initiatives including the introduction of the Centralized Customs Declaration System which is an online declaration, Customs Commissioner Saa Saamoi says.
The LRA launched the Centralized Customs Declaration System in March. This system is a cogent part of the business transformation strategic goals to strengthen trade facilitation by enhancing the customs clearance process.
The new system is assessable to the public to declare and process goods declarations online and reduce clearing periods while payment notices to declarants and releases to terminal operators are also automated.
LRA Compliance Officers (previously known Assessors) assigned at the Freeport of Monrovia and the Roberts International Airport have since been transferred to operate the system from the LRA Headquarters in Paynesville. Moreover, there no longer exists human interface between Customs Brokers and the Compliance Officers.
Commissioner Saamoi said the introduction of the new system has enhanced efficiency in the clearing of goods at the port and improved transparency in revenue collection.
Recently, certain Customs Brokers from Liberia were able to make declarations from as far as the Philippines during the just-ended conference of the International Federation of Customs Brokers.
Meanwhile, Commissioner General Elfrieda Stewart Tamba says the LRA remains committed to introducing new technologies in modernizing and transforming revenue collection in Liberia.
CG Tamba believes that there is no way domestic resource mobilization can be improved in the absence of innovation, automation and the application of technology, zero tolerance for corruption, legal compliance among others, a roadmap, she says, the LRA is progressively achieving.