The
Development Planning Unit
Government of the British Virgin Islands

Signing of Agreement with IBM

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Statement by Honourable Ronnie W. Skelton
Deputy Chief Minister and Minister of Finance
Signing of Agreement Between Government and IBM
Chief Minister’s Conference Room
Monday, 12 September 2005

Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to the signing of an agreement between IBM and the Government of the BVI to provide an e-solution for BVI Customs business processes.

It is important that BVI Customs become a modernized e-Customs agency by streamlining and automating Customs business processes. 

Over the past two years, the management of the BVI Customs, personnel from the Ministry of Finance, and the Information Systems Unit have spent a tremendous amount of time evaluating various software programmes and companies.

Four tenders were short-listed based on the BVI Customs Department’s requirements. Representatives of the companies came to the Territory and made an assessment of BVI Custom’s operations. 

In addition, members of HM Customs, Ministry of Finance, and the trade community had the opportunity to visit and observe first hand other regional Customs Administrations. The BVI CAPS Solution is a customized package that will enable Customs and customers to do business more efficiently and effectively. This customized package will cost approximately $1.9m. 

In addition, it will enable cross-agency collaboration with other BVI enforcement agencies (Immigration, Police, Trade Department, etc.), as well as electronic manifest submission to further improve operational efficiency. 

The BVI CAPS solution will provide the following benefits to Customs and the business community: 

1. Improving Customs efficiency in the processing of customs declarations and its capability to perform compliance audits, 
   
2. Providing a database to collect statistics for analysis in development planning, and 
   
3. Provide a secured and confidential trading environment.

This agreement with IBM is important and necessary, not only in terms of automation and the advantages to be realized, but will ultimately enhance and change the manner in which BVI Residents, the overall Trading Community, and BVI Customs, collects, stores, and interprets Customs’ information.

I wish to thank the IBM Team for exhibiting patience and professionalism over the past two years, the Comptroller of Customs and his dedicated team, the Financial Secretary and the officers from the Ministry of Finance, our Information Systems Unit, and the BVI Trading/Business Community.

Thank you all for being here.