Following a request from the Sudan Customs Authority (SCA), prioritized as part of the HMRC-WCO-UNCTAD multi-year project to implement the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), the WCO delivered a mission to Khartoum, Sudan, 20 to 24 August 2017.  The mission assessed Sudan Customs’ risk management capabilities, structure and functions.  The core objective was to areas to build on and ways to confront challenges in the area of risk management needing to be addressed.

The risk management staff, led by Colonel Gamal Mohammad Abdin, Manager of the Risk Management Administration (RMA), took active part in the discussions and evaluation. They presented their results, their successes and the constraints they experienced in implementing modern, intelligence-based risk management. The team also visited Khartoum International Airport (the pilot site for risk management in SCA), Soba Dry Port (by far the largest Customs clearance office in Sudan), the Legal administration, the IT department and other Customs administration offices. The insights and expertise of management and key personnel contributed greatly to the team’s comprehension of the needs of the administration.

The WCO team acknowledged SCA’s progress in several strategic areas. Recent risk management measures implemented in several Customs offices have laid a firm foundation for roll-out in the rest of the country. The WCO put forward a number of recommendations to support the continued reforms. These recommendations were grouped into five main areas – risk management policy, strategic planning, intelligence, compliance, clearance and human resources – and will form the basis on which SCA will create an action plan.

At the debriefing, the Deputy Director General of SCA, Major General Mohamed Magoub, expressed his appreciation of the mission and its results. He stated that “By addressing the gaps identified during the mission, Sudan Customs would be able to increase its pace and efforts to implement trade facilitation through modern risk management, and thereby successfully manage Sudan’s borders and the expectations of the trading community as well as those of the Sudanese government.”