COVELL NAMED ACTING DIRECTOR OF CUSTOMS’ REGULATORY AUDIT DIVISION

   Cynthia Covell has been named acting director of U.S. Customs’
Regulatory Audit Division.
   She replaces William F. Inch, who has left the agency to take a job with consulting firm KPMG. Covell will remain director of the Regulatory Audit Division for 45 days until a permanent director is appointed.
   The Regulatory Audit Division wants to make sure that the country’s top 1,000 importers are following the rules. The transition to a new director will be transparent to the industry, Covell said.
   However, the agency will announce some changes in the way it conducts its future audits in a new Compliance Assessment Kit, due to be released in the next two weeks.
   The changes will be minor, said Carolyn McDaniel, field audit specialist for compliance assessments at Customs. Most of the changes center around terminology to explain why Customs makes the compliance checks it does.
   The only major change is that Customs will reduce its sample sizes for
audited areas from 220 items to 100 items.