By McPherse Thompson, Staff Reporter
Alison Moore, Commissioner of the Customs Department - File
SOME 130 staff members of the Jamaica Customs Department in Kingston and Montego Bay, St. James, lost their jobs last week when the revenue agency sent them on leave as part of a restructuring programme now under way.
The latest batch brought to about 240, the number of persons who were forced to give up their positions after the entire Customs staff was transferred to the Ministry of Finance and Planning and told to reapply for positions in the newly-structured Customs Department earlier this year. The Department originally had a staff component of over 1,000.
The Customs Department has referred those persons severed from their jobs to the Office of the Services Commission for either redeployment elsewhere in the civil service or retirement.
However, up to yesterday, the Services Commission said it was still in the process of determining where those former Customs staff could be accommodated. "We are still trying to place them," said Charles Jones, chief personnel officer at the Services Commission.
Asked if a determination has been made whether all those severed from the Customs Department would be placed in other jobs, Mr. Jones said the Services Commission was in the process of finding out whether it could place all or any of those affected.
Among those displaced were more than 100 Customs staff who were sent on leave between May and June, this year. Asked if those referred to the Services Commission were still being paid, Mr. Jones said that if they were still on leave they would be getting paid. For those whose leave have expired and have not been redeployed, "we retire them," he said.
However, the personnel officer said he did not have the records on his desk at the time Wednesday Business contacted him and, therefore, he was unable to say how many of the displaced staff were still on vacation leave or had other leave entitlements.
In a release earlier this week, the Customs Department said the Ministry of Finance and Planning has, to date, referred about 240 staff members to the Services Commission for redeployment or retirement. About 490 others have been assigned positions in the Customs Department.
The release said that during the course of this week, interviews will be conducted to fill about 250 clerical positions, followed by interviews for secretaries. "It is expected that the entire staffing process for the organisation will be completed by the end of September 2002," the release said.
Last Friday, the Customs Brokers Association of Jamaica (CBAJ) complained that there has been a slow-down in clearance of goods from the island's ports, partly because some of the staff who were notified last week that they would be sent on leave at the end of the week, did not turn up for work after receiving the notification.
Yesterday, Hendricks Porter, the CBAJ president, confirmed a statement by Commissioner of the Customs Department, Alison Moore, that a backlog of C-78 import entries at Customs House in Kingston which had caused a slow-down in import clearance had now been processed.
Mr. Porter said that during the CBAJ's monthly meeting with the Customs Department on Monday, they were told that personnel from the invoice branch were brought in over the weekend to clear up the backlog.
