Customs Advancing Digitization with Electronic Archiving

General Authority of Customs

The Customs Authority has completed several digitization projects this year and is working towards a fully paperless customs system, according to an expert.

In a recent Customs newsletter, Eman Mekdad, Senior Information Systems expert at the General Authority of Customs, highlighted both completed and upcoming projects.

One of the key goals of the Information Systems Department is to align the Authority’s institutional structure with best practices in customs work, achieving organizational goals efficiently and effectively through proper organization and guidance.

Notable projects include the Strategic Digitization Project for records and documents management, completed in 2021. This year saw the completion of the Nadeeb Document Preservation Project and the Enterprise Architecture Project, with the Audit Management Program set for completion later this year, Mekdad noted.

Mekdad outlined the objectives of the strategic digitization project, starting with the transition to a ‘Paperless Customs’ system. This will be achieved through electronic archiving, allowing all documents to be accessed easily in their electronic form via the content management program.

Additionally, paper documents will be stored in warehouses following international standards, protecting them from damage.

Regarding the Internal Audit Management Program, Mekdad explained that its goal is to introduce a comprehensive paperless customs system that will streamline and enhance internal audit processes. This system will equip internal auditors with the necessary tools to perform their tasks effectively and foster a culture of continuous improvement within the organization.

Mekdad also noted that the Nadeeb Document Preservation Project was implemented at the request of the Operations and Risk Department to preserve documents uploaded to the Nadeeb system, making them easy to retrieve securely for audit purposes.

"We faced many challenges in this project due to the involvement of several parties in the linking process, but these were overcome, and the project was completed in the second quarter of 2023. The project aims to promote digital transformation, improve efficiency, save and quickly retrieve documents, and ensure a secure scanning process before saving them," he added.

 

 

Source: The Peninsula Qatar