By Joel Zurbano

A simmering feud between two Customs officials stationed in Subic Bay Free Port has caused the loss of an estimated P500 million in foregone revenues during the last four months.

Port of Subic collector Marietta Zamoranos said that there are personality issues involved between her and field officer Kurais Usman, head of the X-ray Inspection Project.

Because of their dispute, the bureau’s policy requiring container vans to go through X-ray scanning has not been carried out, according to Zamoranos.

From October 2008 to January 2009, about 42 percent or 858 of 2,000 container vans that passed through Subic were not scanned and the container security fees were not paid.

Zamoranos accused Usman of not furnishing her with the report or documents relative to importers or containers passing through the two X-ray machines at the freeport.

Usman denied the allegation, saying he regularly gives report but Zamoranos is not supportive of the bureau’s scanning policy.

“I’ve been asking for copies of inward foreign manifests to be able to track down shipments, but I didn’t hear from them,” Usman said, adding that his team’s duty is to scan shipments whether or not fees have been paid.

Admitting that his team is undermanned, Usman said they can do the scanning for as long as the Subic locators (importers) cooperate. “But we just cannot stay open for 24 hours and wait for them without assurance that they will come,” Usman said.

“Containers do not come here every 5 minutes, unlike in the Port of Manila where they line up for scanning,” Usman said.

The agency charges $5 for scanning a 20-foot container and $10 for a 40-foot container.

“We lost about P500 million for the container security fee alone, but how about those misdeclared or underdeclared goods. We can only know if they pay the correct taxes if they allow us to scan the containers,” Usman said.

Informed of the revenue loss, lawmakers recommended that the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority should be deputized as collector of the container security fee, and that a container van should only be cleared after scanning and payment of the fee.

Some locators insist that they are covered by the SBMA and that Customs has no authority over them.