The World Customs Organization delivered an integrity self-assessment facilitation workshop for the benefit of the State Revenue Committee of the Republic of Armenia (SRC), 7-11 October 2019 in Yerevan, Armenia. The mission was facilitated by a team of integrity experts from the WCO and the State Customs Committee of Belarus. 

In his opening remarks to the workshop participants, the head of the SRC Customs Control Department, Mr. Artem Karapetyan, spoke about recent achievements made by the Customs administration including improvement of trade facilitation measures, automation of Customs procedures and implementation of a Single Window environment in Armenia.  He stressed, however, the importance of integrity and that it should be always taken into consideration in all facets of Customs reforms and modernization processes. The head of SRC International cooperation Department Mr. Suren Melik-Israelyan and the head of HR Department Ms. Karine Grigoryan reiterated Customs’ the importance of integrity and their commitment to promote a culture of integrity in the organization and the necessity to work on the enhancement and improvement of institutional and integrity development, as well as on Customs performance.   

Customs officers from various operational units of Armenian Customs, including the operational field officers from regional SRC authorities, successfully conducted the integrity self-assessment study based on the provisions of the WCO Revised Arusha declaration on Good governance and Integrity in Customs. The participants were updated, during the week, on the latest WCO integrity tools and activities and international best practices on integrity and the fight against corruption in Customs.  The participants also participated in a series of assessment studies that were targeted to improve the transparency of Customs operations. In addition, the Customs administration and the WCO experts performed a comparative analysis between the Rules of Conduct (ethics) of Customs officials of Armenia and the provisions of the WCO Model Code of Conduct. The relevant measures and recommendations from the comparison were outlined and will be used for further improvement of the current Integrity strategy.

The Deputy Chairman of the State Revenue Committee Mr. Eduard Hovhannisyan expressed the government’s and Customs administration’s commitment towards strengthening the efforts on integrity development and successful implementation of WCO, and other international, tools and instruments on fighting against corruption. The SRC has, through partnership and cooperation with various stakeholders, including state anti-corruption authorities and other government agencies, as well as with the private sector, strived to enhance integrity. He concluded that the results of the integrity self-assessment work will serve as a basis for the next periodic review of SRC’s integrity development strategy.

For more information please contact: capacity.building@wcoomd.org.