By Lynford Simpson, Staff ReporterTHE CUSTOMS Department will begin advertising more than 400 vacant positions this week, according to Alison Moore, Commissioner of Customs.
She told yesterday's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that at present 671 positions were filled.
Michelle Williams, Deputy Commissioner Corporate Services, told reporters after the PAC meeting that the department was looking to employ a number of auditors in the categories of compliance, valuators and internal auditors.
Also to be filled are some human resource positions, accounting positions, systems administrators in the area of information technology and clerical and customs officer positions.
The new recruits will bring the department's staff complement to 1,098, slightly less than the about 1,200 positions which existed before the rationalisation programme spearheaded by the Ministry of Finance. The programme is aimed at modernising the revenue agency.
Three hundred and fifty-four former employees who were shifted from the department have been referred to the Office of the Services Commission. It is not known whether any of them will be deployed elsewhere in the public service.
Yesterday Ms. Williams brushed aside claims that these employees were axed because they were involved in corrupt practices.
"It (the rationalisation programme) was to re-engineer the organisation from the perspective of revitalising the workforce," she stressed.
She added that "what we wanted to do was to ensure that the appropriate skills were matched with the positions that were available".
When pressed to provide further clarification on why so many persons were separated from the department, Ms. Williams explained that: "There was a process which involved a panel interview, a written exercise and a psychometric test. All three activities were evaluated and decisions made based on those".
Of the current staff, 134, or 20 per cent, had no prior experience at Customs and the Corporate Services manager admitted that this led to a decline in the department's response time "when they just came on".
"As they grow in experience we will take care of that," she said.
