The procedure for clearing cargo through Lebanese Customs will go from taking 35 steps to just three, shaving a total of 10 hours and 40 minutes from the process, the agency announced Friday.
The new steps to clearing baggage were distributed during a launch event held Friday. They are: The recipient must obtain a paper from the shipping agency allowing the baggage claim; the recipient must provide this paper with identification documents to the Customs officer; and the officer must check the paper and the baggage and approve the clearance. Lebanese Customs estimates the new process will take just 20 minutes.
Improving this system, Lebanese Customs Director-General Badri Daher told the state-run National News Agency, will have the effect of increasing people’s trust in the Lebanese state, improving productivity and encouraging expats to return. Daher added that several additional measures to decrease the procedure steps at the airport will also be taken.
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The streamlining of the cargo Customs process is part of a broader move by the state to facilitate procedures and crackdown on corruption; fewer steps means fewer points at which state employees might ask for or accept a bribe, a common practice in Lebanon.
Over the past two years, Daher said Lebanese Customs has simplified the procedures of about 60 processes, saving time equivalent to approximately 61 workdays, about LL5 billion ($3.3 million) and some LL41 million worth of papers.
