FLASH
Shkruar nga Shpëtim Luku
Xiao Min was a Chinese businessman who was engaged in the textile clothing trading business in Albania until 2010, before moving to North Macedonia. Since he imported ready-made clothes from China, he often had problems with customs, and he often preferred to tell me about the problems that caused them.
"Why does the customs open so much work, Xiao Min", I asked him one day. And the Chinese businessman, who was also noted for his sense of humor, responded by telling me a story.
"The wife of the Minister of Finance married her brother. And she asks her husband, that is, the Minister: what gift are we going to give my brother, because you know, I only have that brother.
We will buy him a car, the man replied.
Such a small gift for my only brother will you give, returned the woman.
Well, let's buy him an apartment, the minister's husband made another proposal.
With such a modest gift, you will spend such an important event as the marriage of my only brother, the woman protested again angrily.
Well, I'm giving him an appointment at customs, the man told him.
Yes, agreed the woman, who was extremely satisfied."
Despite the barcalet form that this story has, it also contains doses of realism. It is not far from the reality that the customs have manifested. Because there was a time when being appointed to customs was a dream for many, many people. There was a time when appointment to customs was the goal and aim of many people. And not for the sake of professional fulfillment, not because it represented the work that the people who aspired to it knew how to do best. But because the customs was the place, for which there existed, the name, the perception and the claim of getting rich in a short time. It was the place of work that created the opportunity to realize a fortune over a few years, which was not even thought possible with honest work. And this claim was not without grounds. For a long time, customs have been the institutions from which colossal financial sums flowed, which in fact should have ended up in the state budget. Customs have been for a long time, with "torn gates", where large quantities of fuel, cigarettes, coffee or alcoholic beverages, i.e. those goods that were subject to high excise duty, evaporated through an activity called smuggling.
And this whole process of diversion of large financial sums, from the state budget to private accounts, this whole economic crime, could not be done without the cooperation of the customs personnel. It was a criminal collaboration, where the businessman benefited from large sums, which, in fact, he had to pour into the budget, while the customs officer received his benefit for creating the conditions, aware of the economic damage he caused to the state budget. During this period, the customs officials were really corrupt.
Over the years, classic smuggling in large quantities, carried out directly at the port, where the goods were unloaded, but not declared and registered, "became obsolete" as a method, to give way to more sophisticated forms. Reforms and investments in technology greatly reduced this form of economic crime. As a result, the customs officers were stripped of a valuable competence, which they used for private interests. But although important reforms have been carried out in customs, accompanied by positive developments, again, the Albanian customs officer represents a category of employees with great chances of corruption.
So the Albanian customs officer is a potential corrupt person, that if the conditions are created, he turns into a real corrupt person. Why does this happen? Why do customs officials risk so much, in the name of small profits, by cooperating with small traders who try to pass without registering their quantities of goods? There may be several factors, but the most important one, which is also the reason for this article, is related to the fact that the Albanian customs officer now represents a category of civil servants who are poorly paid. Until a few months ago, a customs officer with over 20 years of work in this profession was paid a little more than 60,000 Lek per month, and only now their salary, with all the seniority at work, has increased to about 85,000 Lek per month.
It is a salary level below what their counterparts in other countries receive. But in the case of the customs officer, it is not a question of an ordinary employee, although he is treated as such. The 1,000-person team of the Albanian customs has a very important task, as it collects about 60 percent of the state's fiscal income through its work. Increasing their salaries to satisfactory levels, to levels where a customs official, through dismissal in case of abuse of office, has something to lose, can significantly reduce their corrupt tendency. But before this happens and until this happens, if it will happen, announcements like the one a few days ago about the arrests of customs officers will be common.
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