US embassy cable - 05MAPUTO791

UNCLAS MAPUTO 000791 
 
SIPDIS 
USTR PASS TO MATT RHODE 
AF/S - HTREGER 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ETRD, MZ, CTM, Coastal Security 
SUBJECT: WCO FRAMEWORK OF STANDARDS - MOZAMBIQUE VIEWS 
 
REF: STATE 94927 
 
1. On June 23 Emboff spoke with Danilo Nala, Director for 
Internal Control at the Mozambique Customs Office (this is 
generally regarded as one of the top three positions at 
Customs.) Nala said that Mozambique has sent a three-member 
delegation to the Brussels conference, headed by the Director 
General of Customs, Antonio Barros. Mozambique did not 
participate in the December 2004 WCO conference in Jordan, 
and Nala said that his agency had not had time to study at 
length the details of the WCO Framework. He said, however, 
that he anticipated that the Mozambican delegation would have 
no substantive problems with the framework text and that 
Mozambique was already working to come into compliance with 
the broad outlines of the agreement. 
 
2. Nala added that next week, in Mozambique's efforts to 
upgrade customs standards in compliance with the WCO 
Framework, his agency would put up for bid to private 
companies the right to purchase scanners for Mozambique's 
major ports, airports, and land border crossings. The 
purchasing company would also gain the right to collect user 
fees for those scanners over a multi-year period. Customs 
has received inquiries from 11 companies - two of them 
Mozambican, none of them American - that may bid on this 
concession. Nala said that Customs will "privatize" scanners 
because the GRM does not have funds available to make the 
purchases, and because donors have shown limited interest in 
the multi-million dollar price tag. 
Dudley