From 5 to 9 February 2018, the WCO provided strategic support to the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) Customs and Excise Department under the Mercator Programme.  A team of WCO experts met with senior officials, front-line officials, and made site visits to operational and commercial areas to evaluate reforms for modernizing Customs and implementing the WTO TFA.

Before the mission, the team conducted open source research on the GRA utilizing Guyana government, GRA, and global data sources.  The in-country component of the evaluation looked at holistic organizational issues using as references the WCO Diagnostic Framework and the WTO TFA. The two references combined provide a more holistic analysis for trade facilitation, compliance and enforcement, and enabling organizational institutional arrangements.

As part of the in-country assessment, the team conducted interviews of senior managers and operational staff as well as public and private sector stakeholders to gain insight across all levels of the organization.  Visits were made to GRA headquarters in Georgetown, Customs offices Moleson Creek port facilities, and to Georgetown port and Transit Warehouse inland facilities, in order to observe GRA procedures and processes at these locations.

The GRA operates in a complex, high-profile environment. It engages in high-volume business-process activities such as processing import, export, transit and transhipment consignments, while preparing or responding to urgent and high-profile events. Recommendations were made to enhance reforms underway as well as support preparations for drafting a strategic plan with supporting organizational functional alignment, implementation plans for core business areas (e.g. human resource management, risk management, enforcement and compliance, trade facilitation, etc.) and on-going projects.