Is it Possible to Reform a Customs Administration? The Role of the Customs Elite on the Reform Process in Cameroon

An ethnographic approach is applied to Cameroon customs in order to explore the role and the capacity of the bureaucratic elites to reform their institution. Fighting against corruption has led to the extraction and circulation of legal ‘collective money’ that fuels internal funds. This collective money is the core of the senior officers’ power and authority, and materially grounds their elite status. Nevertheless, when reforming, wilful senior officers face a major problem. On the one hand, the onus is on them to improve governance and transparency, which can challenge the way they exert their authority. On the other hand, goodwill is not sufficient. ‘Reformers’ depend on a violent and unpredictable appointment process, driven by the political will to fight against corruption and the fact that the political authority has to keep a close eye on the customs apparatus that tends towards autonomy, thanks to its internal funds. Violence and collective representations weaken the legitimacy of the senior officers, even the reformers, by pushing individual skills into the background. This paper questions whether Cameroon’s use of official customs data to evaluate individual performance can open up fissures among customs elites such that reformers are distinguished from others.customs, money circulation, elitism, Cameroon

Why Does cargo spend weeks in African ports ? the case of Douala, Cameroon

This paper investigates the main factors explaining long container dwell times in African Ports. Using original and extensive data on container imports in the Port of Douala, it seeks to provide a basic understanding of why containers stay on average more than two weeks in gateway ports in Africa while long dwell times are widely recognized as a critical hindrance to economic development. It also demonstrates the interrelationships that exist between logistics performance of consignees, operational performance of port operators and efficiency of customs clearance operations. Shipment level analysis is used to identify the main determinants of long cargo dwell times and the impact of shipment characteristics such as fiscal regime, density of value, bulking and packaging type, last port of call, and region of origin or commodity group on cargo dwell time in ports is tested. External factors, such as performance of clearing and forwarding agents, shippers and shipping line strategies, also play an important role in the determination of long dwell times. Cargo dwell time distribution has many specificities, including broad-tail, high variance or right-censoring, which requires in-depth statistical analysis prior to any design of policy recommendations.Common Carriers Industry,Transport and Trade Logistics,Transport Economics Policy&Planning,E-Business,Customs and Trade

« Apprivoiser les chiffres » : Penser quantitativement le changement, à partir d’exemples de réformes d’administrations en Afrique

Cet article décrit les effets de l’usage des chiffres pour réformer une administration, à partir de l’ethnographie de projets conduits par la Banque mondiale et l’Organisation mondiale des douanes en Afrique sub-saharienne depuis 2008. Lorsque l’usage de techniques de quantification est décidé pour changer les comportements des fonctionnaires, le phénomène le plus marquant est la rapidité de la propagation de la culture des chiffres au sein et en dehors de l’administration. Les chiffres et la pensée de l’évaluation qu’ils fondent constituent une connaissance particulière de l’administration sur elle-même, une langue qui interfère dans les rapports habituels entre les administrations et la loi. Cette langue permet-elle de tout penser ? Permet-elle d’innover en termes politiques ou les chiffres sont-ils construits de telle sorte qu’ils enserrent les pensées individuelles dans les institutions auxquelles ils appartiennent ? De fait, l’Etat dispose jusqu’à présent du monopole de la connaissance sur lui-même, parce qu’il demeure, dans de nombreuses administrations, le seul producteur de données quantitatives sur son fonctionnement. L’article tente de dépasser le débat usuel sur l’évaluation quantitative, qui oppose objectivité et subjectivité de cette évaluation, autonomie des fonctionnaires et autoritarisme de l’évaluation, pour proposer une nouvelle compréhension de ce que peut être une institution, dépassant le seul cadre administratif pour s’intéresser au sens même d’un service public et comment les chiffres peuvent donner corps à ce sens.Mots cles : Reforme, Changement, Chiffre, Douane, Administration.Codes JEL : H83. 

Cross-Border Trade, Insecurity and the Role of Customs: Some Lessons from Six Field Studies in (Post-) Conflict Regions

Africa, and especially the Sahel, has experienced frequent recurrences of armed conflicts and terrorist acts in the last decade. This paper is based on six field studies, in Chad, Mali, Sudan, Tunisia, Libya and the Central African Republic. It reflects on the governance of trade in border regions during a (post-)conflict situation, exploring the practices and strategies of customs officials operating at insecure borders. It demonstrates the unintended consequences of security policies – especially on trade, and consequently on revenue generation. It further shows how customs administrations de facto leave it to customs officers on the ground and importers to agree on an acceptable tax burden to prevent smuggling and a new upsurge in violence to a certain extent. Idiosyncratic and pragmatic approaches by customs seem to play a major role at the local level.Bill and Melinda Gates FoundationDepartment for International Developmen

Could a well-designed customs reforms remove the trade-off between revenue collection and trade facilitation?

This paper is based on first-hand experience from Customs reforms in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) and presents unpublished data on the impact of Customs reforms on revenues, trade facilitation, private sector operators and frontline Customs officials behaviors in Africa. Customs agencies are usually one of the key revenue collection agencies in Africa. Customs officials usually consider trade facilitation measures as a threat for revenue collection and strive to increase control over private sector operators through systematic inspections and checkpoints in order to increase public revenues (in theory). In reality, imports undervaluation remains high as well as smuggling and transit diversion, which result in endemic corruption and increased clearance time and uncertainty. Because many issues lie in the internal weaknesses of Customs agencies, a revised approach to Customs reforms is needed to ensure, first, internal control of the organization and then gradually relax controls on operators and ensure formal trade facilitation. Without internal control and knowledge of the magnitude of the malpractices in most Customs agencies in Africa, private sector differentiation can not happen and therefore formal trade facilitation would remain inexistent, while results in terms of revenue collection will probably be below what can be achieved. --Customs,trade facilitation,Nigeria,Cameroon,public sector reform

Taxation and Customs Reforms in Fragile States: Between Bargaining and Enforcement

In the last decade, African authorities and the international community have called for support to increase taxation capacity in order to reduce reliance on aid flows. This commitment to support tax administrations was reflected in the 2015 Addis Tax Initiative (ATI), which advocated ‘to double assistance to developing countries in order to strengthen their tax systems and administrations’ by the year 2020 (IMF 2017: 6). Increasing domestic resource mobilisation is even more salient for state-building in fragile states, in terms of providing costly services to citizens, including security, across national territory. There is a rich literature (Acemoglu and Robinson 2012; Besley and Persson 2009) arguing that robust and inclusive fiscal institutions are essential for state-building and economic growth. This is not the situation in fragile states

How will the State think with the assistance of ChatGPT? The case of customs as an example of generative artificial intelligence in public administrations

The paper discusses the implications of General Artificial Intelligence (GAI) in public administrations and the specific questions it raises compared to specialized and « numerical » AI, based on the example of Customs and the experience of the World Customs Organization in the field of AI and data strategy implementation in Member countries.At the organizational level, the advantages of GAI include cost reduction through internalization of tasks, uniformity and correctness of administrative language, access to broad knowledge, and potential paradigm shifts in fraud detection. At this level, the paper highlights three facts that distinguish GAI from specialized AI : i) GAI is less associated to decision-making process than specialized AI in public administrations so far, ii) the risks usually associated with GAI are often similar to those previously associated with specialized AI, but, while certain risks remain pertinent, others lose significance due to the constraints imposed by the inherent limitations of GAI technology itself when implemented in public administrations, iii) training data corpus for GAI becomes a strategic asset for public administrations, maybe more than the algorithms themselves, which was not the case for specialized AI..At the individual level, the paper emphasizes the “language-centric” nature of GAI in contrast to “number-centric” AI systems implemented within public administrations up until now. It discusses the risks of replacement or enslavement of civil servants to the machines by exploring the transformative impact of GAI on the intellectual production of the State. The paper pleads for the development of critical vigilance and critical thinking as specific skills for civil servants who are highly specialized and will have to think with the assistance of a machine that is eclectic by nature

Comment pensera l’État avec ChatGPT ? WP330: Les douanes comme illustration de l’intelligence artificielle générative dans les administrations publiques

Cet article examine les enjeux propres à l’intelligence artificielle générative (IAG) dans les administrations publiques et les effets de sa nature langagière sur les interactions homme-machine. Au niveau organisationnel, les avantages de l’IAG sont la réduction des coûts par l’internalisation des tâches, l’uniformisation et la conformité du langage administratif, l’accès à un vaste corpus de connaissances et, potentiellement, un changement de paradigme dans la détection de la fraude. L’article tente de déconstruire les raisons de la défiance envers l’IAG. Les risques associés à l’IAG dans le secteur public sont souvent similaires à ceux associés à l’IA conventionnelle, mais si certains risques restent pertinents, d’autres le sont moins car la technologie de l’IAG en limite l’explicabilité donc aussi les usages dans les administrations publiques. Au niveau individuel, la nature « langagière » de l’IAG est une rupture profonde, par rapport à la nature « numérique » des systèmes d’IA mis en œuvre dans les administrations publiques jusqu’à présent. L’impact transformateur de l’IAG sur la production intellectuelle de l’État fait naître la crainte de remplacement ou plutôt d’asservissement des fonctionnaires aux machines. L’article plaide pour le développement de la vigilance et de la pensée critique comme compétences spécifiques pour les fonctionnaires qui sont devenus très spécialisés et qui devront penser avec une machine qui, elle, est éclectique par nature

Comment pensera l’État avec ChatGPT ? WP330: Les douanes comme illustration de l’intelligence artificielle générative dans les administrations publiques

Cet article examine les enjeux propres à l’intelligence artificielle générative (IAG) dans les administrations publiques et les effets de sa nature langagière sur les interactions homme-machine. Au niveau organisationnel, les avantages de l’IAG sont la réduction des coûts par l’internalisation des tâches, l’uniformisation et la conformité du langage administratif, l’accès à un vaste corpus de connaissances et, potentiellement, un changement de paradigme dans la détection de la fraude. L’article tente de déconstruire les raisons de la défiance envers l’IAG. Les risques associés à l’IAG dans le secteur public sont souvent similaires à ceux associés à l’IA conventionnelle, mais si certains risques restent pertinents, d’autres le sont moins car la technologie de l’IAG en limite l’explicabilité donc aussi les usages dans les administrations publiques. Au niveau individuel, la nature « langagière » de l’IAG est une rupture profonde, par rapport à la nature « numérique » des systèmes d’IA mis en œuvre dans les administrations publiques jusqu’à présent. L’impact transformateur de l’IAG sur la production intellectuelle de l’État fait naître la crainte de remplacement ou plutôt d’asservissement des fonctionnaires aux machines. L’article plaide pour le développement de la vigilance et de la pensée critique comme compétences spécifiques pour les fonctionnaires qui sont devenus très spécialisés et qui devront penser avec une machine qui, elle, est éclectique par nature

Un scanner de conteneurs en « Terre Promise » camerounaise : adopter et s’approprier une technologie de contrôle

This article is based on an ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2006 and 2010 in an African Customs Administration. A specific event - the adoption and implementation of a container scanner by the administration – is an interesting opportunity to examine two questions related to control technology in the particular context of African borders. The first question is the adoption of a technology: how does a tool become an instrument that renews the meaning of the control at borders? A tentative answer is provided by a description of public and private rationales that led to the adoption of container scanners in many African customs. The second question is the effectiveness of a technique that is deployed within border spaces that are quantified and represented through economics. The answer examines the difficulties in calculating this efficiency as a notion vested with the notion of profitability and highlights the strength of technology as a technical idiom satisfying the promise of reform