TT Chamber urges stronger backup systems after Customs disruption

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce has com­mend­ed the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion for restor­ing the Cus­toms Bor­der Con­trol Sys­tem (ASY­CU­DA), which was dis­rupt­ed on June 30 fol­low­ing a wa­ter leak at the Cus­toms House, Gov­ern­ment Cam­pus Plaza, Port of Spain.

The Cham­ber ac­knowl­edged the restora­tion but high­light­ed the need for im­proved in­fra­struc­ture re­dun­dan­cy and busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity plan­ning with­in the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion and across all crit­i­cal gov­ern­ment ser­vices.

The Cham­ber rec­om­mend­ed that au­thor­i­ties in­vest in back­up sys­tems and con­tin­gency pro­to­cols to main­tain op­er­a­tional con­ti­nu­ity or en­sure swift restora­tion if pri­ma­ry in­fra­struc­ture is af­fect­ed. It stat­ed that en­hanc­ing the re­silience of cus­toms in­fra­struc­ture is nec­es­sary to pro­tect the na­tion­al econ­o­my from fu­ture dis­rup­tions.

Pres­i­dent Son­ji Pierre-Chase said the in­ci­dent demon­strates the need to strength­en busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity plans for es­sen­tial ser­vices. Pierre-Chase stat­ed that dis­as­ter re­cov­ery and back­up sys­tems are es­sen­tial to main­tain­ing na­tion­al pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty.

The Cham­ber re­it­er­at­ed its com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing the im­ple­men­ta­tion of con­ti­nu­ity mea­sures across key agen­cies. It stat­ed that pro­tect­ing the flow of com­merce and eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty is a na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty.

The Cham­ber al­so ex­pressed its will­ing­ness to col­lab­o­rate with rel­e­vant en­ti­ties on long-term so­lu­tions that im­prove the re­li­a­bil­i­ty of trade and cus­toms sys­tems.

The ASY­CU­DA sys­tem sup­ports cus­toms op­er­a­tions and trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion across Trinidad and To­ba­go. The sys­tem was of­fline for sev­er­al hours on June 30 due to the wa­ter leak, af­fect­ing cus­toms pro­cess­ing and the clear­ance of goods.

The in­ci­dent marked a tem­po­rary dis­rup­tion, but the Cham­ber not­ed the broad­er im­pli­ca­tions for na­tion­al com­merce and trade re­silience. It urged the im­ple­men­ta­tion of strate­gic im­prove­ments to pre­vent sim­i­lar oc­cur­rences.