GAO: CBPÆs in-bond program suffers ôlax oversightö
A congressional watchdog agency report faulted U.S. Customs and Border Protection's in-bond program for 'lax oversight.'
The agency's in-bond program allows certain cargoes to be transported from the first port of arrival to another U.S. location for customs clearance or for exportation. The program is used by many importers.
The Government Accountability Office said CBP 'collects little information on in-bond shipments and performs limited analysis of data that it does collect.'
The GAO report noted that the in-bond program problems continue despite numerous program reviews and audits.
'The major weakness is that CBP does not adequately monitor and track in-bond goods,' the GAO report said. 'In particular, it does not consistently reconcile in-bond documents issued at the arrival port with documents at the destination port to ensure that the cargo is either officially entered with appropriate duties or quotas applied, or is in fact exported.'
The failure of CBP to reconcile leaves in-bond shipments in an 'open' status. One CBP port reported that 77 percent of its in-bond transactions were open, the GAO report said.
The GAO believes that CBP's failure to improve its oversight of in-bond shipment leaves the program vulnerable to security breeches.
