Following a request for capacity building in the area of effective revenue collection, the WCO conducted a National Workshop on Post-Clearance Audit (PCA) in Manama, Bahrain, from 17 to 21 April 2016. The Workshop welcomed some 20 middle-management Customs officers in charge of Post-Clearance-Audit (PCA) and from other related Customs areas such as risk management.

As Bahrain Customs has just created a PCA section in December 2015, the workshop on the international standard of Post Clearance Audit concepts and its working process, in line with the WCO PCA Guidelines.

Through exercises on risk-based targeting methods and pre-audit research, participants learned that the high-quality preparation is a fundamental key of success in any audits.

Case studies by the experts provided an overview of the progress of an audit from targeting to on-site audit, and discussions on how to tackle uncooperative traders also added an insight into how to implement the new audit system.

Over the week, many questions on methodology and techniques were raised that were always followed by active discussions. The Workshop concluded successfully with positive feedback from the participants, who gained more confidence in implementing PCA in a more effective way.