Albanian Customs under the assistance of "Crown Agents"
27/01/2014

“Albanian Customs must become as soon as possible as the European ones, and the objective is a long transformation of this system”.

This is the ambition of the Albanian government, as declared by Prime Minister Edi Rama during an activity, in which they presented the Customs strategic plan, together with the Crown Agents company.

“By bringing to life the government’s cooperation with the international partners, the directors and employees of the Customs and the Crown Agents team, the Albanian Customs must become as every other European Customs, a financial instrument of social nature. Borders divide us, but customs take us closer, was the slogan of the international day of customs in 2012, which speaks clearly for the complexity of this job and how important Customs is as an institution for the international and social relations”, Rama declared.

After valuing the work done by the Albanian customs in these four months, the Albanian Prime Minister mentioned the role that Crown agents will have.

“Crown agents will make 450 inspections each month and will help us guarantee 1% of our country’s Gross Domestic Product from customs. I want to underline that this improvement will remain short-termed even after this. What we are interested in is focusing on the long-term improvement and transforming the Albanian Customs system”, Rama declared.

David Smith, the leader of the assistance program from Crown Agents, explained some of the objectives that they aim.

“The implementation of Customs audits and the discovery of fraudulent cases will be the main priority that will be applied by our agents, who will be on terrain by discovering the frauds. We will make the customs procedures easier and will transmit every information to the central level. The other objective is increasing the revenues, increasing the customs capacity in accordance with the European Union countries. We have a team of international experts from Britain, Latvia, Finland, Sweden and other countries. We are not hidden, to surprise those who pass the customs, but we will be visible for the public. We will increase the revenues in a very short time, and those will stay in a long-term standard. I want to make it clear that we are here as advisers, not as managers, to cooperate with yo and the government”, Smith declared.

The General Customs Director, Elisa Spiropali, underlined that there will be a fight without compromises against the fiscal evasion, and expressed her readiness for cooperation with “Crown Agents”.

“The tolls of our customs are not decent for the moment”, Spiropali declared, adding that the Customs wants the Prosecution to go to the end of all investigations for all violations identified so far.

The Minister of Economic Development and Enterprising, Arben Ahmetaj, declared that the customs service will be the representation of a new relation with the business.

The Minister of Finances, Cani, focused on the fight against fiscal evasion and corruption in Customs.