Political Will as an Enabler for a Customs Administration to Implement Coordinated Border Management: A Practical Example

This article considers the important role played by customs administrations in the context of a practical example that entails the awarding of a multinational project spanning various countries. It demonstrates that it is not only a country’s public and private business enterprises that would be adversely affected by inadequacies in the administration of customs matters but also a region as a whole. In this case, it was found that, although the way in which customs matters are managed in South Africa could prima facie have contributed to the country (and region) not being awarded the project in its entirety, the actual findings indicated that the customs administration itself was not responsible for the low score attracted under the Customs and Excise assessment heading of the practical example. Instead, many of the findings merely related to logistical issues within a wider operational framework where a customs administration is but one role player amongst many. Subsequently, the focus turned to a current customs topic, namely coordinated border management and its critical success factors, in particular political will, in order to determine if more could have been done by the South African government towards full implementation. This revealed what the government has achieved in this regard over the past two decades. Furthermore, it was again reiterated that the South African customs administration is only one part of the government’s administration. Effective customs administration is entirely dependent on political will and a whole-of-government approach, that is, a truly coordinated approach to border management.