2024-04-14 06:15:41
Regardless of whether it is done on paper or through the electronic system, the control is at a high level, the director of the Customs Agency, Georgi Dimov, commented specially for “24 Chasa”
There were difficulties on the last working day of the week in the electronic processing of part of the customs declarations for import and export. The reason is a technical defect in the central system of the “Customs” Agency, which also affects the work of the module for tariff items, the agency announced.
The incident with the defective hardware occurred on Thursday afternoon and affected several systems, including the electronic processing of tolls and permit regimes, the control of which is carried out at the country’s borders.
In order to avoid the formation of truck pile-ups at the borders, it was immediately switched to paper processing in accordance with the established protocol and the same evening the problem was fixed, further specified by the customs.
Today, there were still difficulties in the processing of some customs declarations, which affected the work of the internal customs offices. Systems are expected to be restored by late afternoon.
“It doesn’t matter whether the cargo vehicles are processed on paper or through the electronic system, high-level control is always applied,” commented Georgi Dimov, the director of the Customs Agency, specially for “24 Chasa”.
“24 Chasa” also found Kolyo Kolev, director of the “Information Systems and Analytical Activity” Directorate at the “Customs” Agency, at his workplace, who gave more information about the problem:
Kolyo Kolev: We immediately switched to “emergency procedure”, we expect the problem to be fixed today
Mr. Kolev, what is the reason why some of the customs information systems are not working today?
The cause is a hardware problem in one of the machines in the central system. Unfortunately, no matter how good some information systems are, technical problems also happen. The important thing is to remove them as quickly as possible and to find an adequate solution. This is an extremely rare case for customs information systems, which are accessible to the clients of the Customs Agency more than 99% of the time on an annual basis.
What measures have been taken?
We acted according to the established procedure in such situations. As soon as the problem was identified, the so-called “emergency procedure” was activated, i.e. paper processing in relation to tolls and permit regimes, since the suspension of work on them poses the risk of congestion at the borders. This was successfully avoided. And as of 10.00pm last night, Thursday, the module was restored and operations continued as usual through the electronic system.Today, work is actively underway to restore full functionality to the import and export modules where there are difficulties in processing some of the customs declarations.
Does working under “emergency procedure” mean less control?
This means slower processing, as the systems provide greater speed and efficiency than paper-based procedures. The effect is seen in the number of trucks processed, which are about 30% less than a typical weekday, but this is an unavoidable effect. As I said when it comes to the border, it is important that the processing does not stop, ie. to have an alternative option for work. In such situations, we logically process fewer trucks, but with the same high level of control.
“The operation of the customs information systems was fully restored at 8:30 p.m. on April 12,” the customs announced officially.