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Automation of government departments is an urgent national requirement
3/3/2024
Baghdad: Huda Al-Azzawi
Since Iraq entered the new era after the fall of the dictatorship in 2003, successive governments announced their intention to move from the paper-based system, with its waste of time, suspicions of corruption, nepotism, and plundering of public money, to an automation system through the electronic governance portal in all state departments and institutions, and while these announcements remained ink on Paper, the Iraqis hope that during the current Sudanese government, this system will be implemented in departments and bodies such as border crossings, customs, and taxation, which will save the state treasury huge sums of money estimated by “semi-official” bodies at 12 billion dollars annually, while official authorities estimate it at 7 billion dollars annually.
The Prime Minister’s Advisor for Economic and Financial Affairs, Dr. Mazhar Muhammad Saleh, said in an interview with “Al-Sabah”: “The process of automating border crossings and customs points will completely cover the country’s annual imports with these digital systems and procedures by controlling the country’s air and land (border and customs) ports.” And the sea, to which imports of various goods and merchandise flow, whose annual value touches approximately 60 billion dollars on average, and which are dominated by private or private sector imports at a rate of more than 65 percent, will undoubtedly provide our country with several benefits.”
He explained, “These benefits are represented in the following: 1- Reducing evasion of customs duties and taxes, due to the availability of the ability and accuracy to know the details of imported materials and their conformity with the certificate of origin and purchase invoices, which maximizes public revenues, specifically customs revenues or so-called indirect taxes, 2 - The availability of detailed information about the import content through the accuracy of the digital system in detection, which provides the required basic elements of qualitative and commodity control and avoiding the entry of prohibited goods into our country, 3- Reducing human interference in the monitoring, evaluation and demarcation processes and the resulting violations that sometimes contradict the legal system. between the parties to the relationship.
Saleh added, “In addition to the previous benefits, the digital system provides a detailed statistical information base about our country’s foreign trade in terms of quantity and quality with greater accuracy, as well as providing speed in completing customs transactions, which will reduce the costs of commercial transactions, which will reflect positively on the value of goods and merchandise in our country’s markets.” "
For his part, political affairs analyst, Omar Al-Nasser, said in an interview with “Al-Sabah”: “The great powers always tend to keep pace with technological progress in order to push their economy forward and protect their security and national income by following a strategy of reducing expenses and maximizing revenues, and this is not the case.” This can only be achieved by making governance an integral part of the structure of building a state of institutions.”
He stressed that “automation and digital transformation in the customs sector and border crossings will achieve stability, economic leaps, and stability at various levels in the short and long term, and will contribute entirely to reducing the spread of corruption in this area and cut off the path to waste and tampering with public money, because of this positive impact that lies in its importance.” Achieving protection before collection, meaning protecting the Iraqi state, society, and economy from prohibited, suspicious, and smuggled goods that are unfit for consumption and use.”
He added, "This goal will be achieved automatically through the entry of customs data into the electronic information system before the arrival of the goods, which will reflect positively on the disclosure of all details and information regarding everything imported accurately, without favoritism, confusion or delay."
Al-Nasser noted, “Whoever looks at the unparalleled support of Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa Al-Sudani for the Customs Authority will find a significant and clear leap and improvement, and this is evident through the authority’s reports in 2023, and the increase in revenues of some border crossings that have implemented a local electronic system. This is an achievement that is ultimately credited to the Sudanese government as part of a series of successes in implementing the provisions of the government curriculum.”
Edited by: Muhammad Al-Ansari
