Antigua and Barbuda signs on to the establishment of the Caribbean Customs Organisation

Caribbean countries are setting up a new organization, the Caribbean Customs
Organisation, to be better able to serve the needs of the region on matters related to
customs administration and enforcement.
Permanent Secretary of the Caribbean Customs Law Enforcement Council
(CCLEC), Claude Paul, announced this at a CCLEC executive meeting held in
Antigua this week.
Paul shared that Antigua and Barbuda has been one of the first countries in the
region to sign on to the CCO and to ratify its treaty. He said the 38 members of
CCLEC cooperate on matters of mutual assistance, look at capacity building, and
share information. The organization also has an interest in supporting the customs
departments of the region in fulfilling their mandates in terms of revenue
collection, trade facilitation, enforcement, and compliance.
“We have been in existence since the early 1970s, and we are now on the cusp of
becoming a treaty organization which will change our name from the CCLEC to
the CCO, which we believe will position us to be even more effective as an
organization because the treaty status gives us international recognition, as well as
allows us to do certain things that our previous arrangement of the MOU did not
allow us to do, in terms of our relationship with the international donor community
and general cooperation with law enforcement efforts in the region and beyond,”
he indicated.
Paul said the two countries have not yet signed on to the CCO treaty making the
organization fully come into being, but he hopes this will be done before the end of
the year.
Establishing the CCO will also give the organization UN recognition.