WCO FRAMEWORK OF STANDARDS - MOZAMBIQUE VIEWS

UNCLAS MAPUTO 000791 SIPDIS USTR PASS TO MATT RHODE AF/S - HTREGER E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ETRD MZ CTM SUBJECT: WCO FRAMEWORK OF STANDARDS - MOZAMBIQUE VIEWS REF: STATE 94927 ¶1. On June 23 Emboff spoke with Danilo Nala, Director for Internal Control at the Mozambique Customs Office (this is generally regarded as one of the top three positions at Customs.) Nala said that Mozambique has sent a three-member delegation to the Brussels conference, headed by the Director General of Customs, Antonio Barros. Mozambique did not participate in the December 2004 WCO conference in Jordan, and Nala said that his agency had not had time to study at length the details of the WCO Framework. He said, however, that he anticipated that the Mozambican delegation would have no substantive problems with the framework text and that Mozambique was already working to come into compliance with the broad outlines of the agreement. ¶2. Nala added that next week, in Mozambique's efforts to upgrade customs standards in compliance with the WCO Framework, his agency would put up for bid to private companies the right to purchase scanners for Mozambique's major ports, airports, and land border crossings. The purchasing company would also gain the right to collect user fees for those scanners over a multi-year period. Customs has received inquiries from 11 companies - two of them Mozambican, none of them American - that may bid on this concession. Nala said that Customs will "privatize" scanners because the GRM does not have funds available to make the purchases, and because donors have shown limited interest in the multi-million dollar price tag. Dudley