JALALABAD - New customs facilities in Jalalabad that were funded by the World Bank and implemented by UNOPS (United Nations Office for Project Services) are expected to allow imports to enter the country faster and increase government revenue.

According to Mohamad Sarwar Stanekzai, senior monitoring engineer at Eastern Regional Office of UNOPS, the facilities include two warehouses, parking for trucks and small cars and new access roads. The total cost of this infrastructure was about $1.6 million. They add to $3.5 million in facilities completed last year, including a 40 room administrative building, a warehouse, two parking lots for trucks and a 400 kilowatt substation and water pump station. The investments are part of the Emergency Custom Modernization and Trade Facilitation Project (ECMTFP).

“All the premises and facilities play a vital role in enhancing effectiveness of our work and in swelling revenue,” said Haji Mohamad Haris, the supervisor of the evaluation section of the Nangarhar customs office.

Along with the infrastructure UNOPS also provided Nangarhar’s Custom with a proprietary software/system, developed by United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) – ASYCUDA (Automatic, System for Custom Data) which speeds up the process and ensures transparency and is in use in over 80 countries .

“ASYCUDA connects us with all the Customs throughout the country, through our main server, located in Kabul. This system provided a lot of facilities in reporting within the office, as well as, out of our custom,” said Abdul Naser Mumand, a supervisor for ASYCUDA. “UNOPS also trained a lot of young and professional staff members for our section.”

It is expected that the new computer system will help improve transparency and speed up the process of importing goods into Afghanistan. Whereas in the past it would take two to three days for a goods-laden truck entering from Pakistan to get approval to enter Afghanistan, now the process can take as little as 15 minutes.

Alhaj Khaleequllah, Director of Nangarhar’s Custom, said that revenues this year are up. In the last eleven months his office has collected nearly 8 billion Afghanis.

By UNAMA/Jalalabad