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The bitter sorrows of businessmen
Getting ‘pockets picked’ by customs officials
Lots of customs officers take bribes from people who want to clear goods and heap reproaches on them at the same time. It’s a regular scene at customs posts.
“I clench my teeth and endure a stream of abuse in order to get my customs declarations through the ‘doors,” a person who regularly pays bribes to agents told Tien Phong.
Giving money under the table
In the guise of workers of an enterprise that needed to make customs declarations, Tien Phong reporters recently went to the Zone 1 office of HCM City Customs Agency at Cat Lai Port. There they joined the stream of people waiting to make declarations.
At Gate No 1 in the area reserved for customs declarations for imported goods, a sign was posted: ‘customs agent priority gate’.
A tall man in a white T-shirt stepped up from behind us, gave the customs officer some papers and said impersonally: “There is only one” [set of customs forms – reporter].
The customs officer took the documents given by the man, turned over the first paper and, as quick as lightening, took several green 100,000 dong bank notes which were clipped inside the papers and put them into his breast pocket.
Several minutes later, another dossier was given the same agent by another man. The agent once again slipped his hand into the papers, extracted bank notes and put them into his breast pocket.
Though the reporters heard a lot of stories before about how customs officers take bribes from businesses, they did not imagine that these things would take place in such an obvious way.
The reporters walked about the area and observed customs officers working at other gates. Again and again they saw the same manipulation repeated by customs officers: slipping a hand into the files, extracting money and putting it into their pockets.
A staff member of BC Company in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province and a forwarding agent both confirmed that every customs dossier has to go through four customs ‘doors,’ and businesses have to give money under the table at every door..
To import steel, for example, businesses have to give bribes of 100,000 dong at least for every ‘door’. To get through the ‘goods check’ door, businesses have to bribe 300,000 dong for every 40 feet container. Besides, they also have to pay for ‘sundry steps’ 10,000 dong at a time.
Keeping quiet when suffering
The Tien Phong reporters went to the customs agency once more the next day and secretly recorded customs officers receiving bribes from businesses.
At Gate No 12, within one hour, they witnessed a middle-rank examiner take money four times from among the papers handed her by company representatives. Three times bank notes with a face value of 100,000 and 50,000 dong were among the papers, and the fourth time they were in an envelope.
This same examiner accepted or refused dossiers capriciously. With a scowl on her face, she incessantly scolded those who presented themselves to fulfill customs declarations.
At Gate No 10, the reporters witnessed an ‘underground’ affair. At 10.25, a young man told a customs officer that “I have imported goods at overly high prices and I cannot sell them, please help me.” After 20 minutes of checking data, T said: “okay” to the man, meaning that he agreed to ‘deal with the case’.
The young man rejoiced greatly. “Shall we write down 10X50 in the appendix” he asked. In answer, the customs officer nodded his head.
Another customs officer, after watching the reporters’ video tape of the incident, explained that ‘10X50’ means a 50 percent VAT tax reduction granted certain goods according to the Government’s current schedule of tariffs).
This officer also said that it was evident that the other officer and the company representative were colluding to levy an improper, lower rate on the goods, thus lowering the company’s tax obligation.
* Every customs dossier has to go through four customs ‘doors,’ and businesses have to pay at every door. The first thing businesses do is put money among the documents given to customs officers
* A senior executive of an electric wire and cable dealer complained that when goods get stuck at ports, businesses have a lot of difficulties in getting the goods cleared. Instead of clearing in one or two days, businesses have to wait five, seven or sometimes ten days. There are lots of petty fees relating to loading, unloading and transferring the goods.
* In order to expedite the clearance of their goods, businesses have to pay a lot of other ‘unnamed fees’. For example, to know where their goods lying in the mountains of imported items, businesses have to pay those who have such information. The amounts are different, depending on how soon businesses want to get commodities. A charge of 20,000 to 30,000 dong used to be common for this job, but the price has now increased to 50,000 dong.
VietNamNet/TP
(to be continued)
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