The Customs Intelligence and Enforcement Group has been restricted to office work with its 50-man staff farmed out to the Enforcement and Security Service, and the Intelligence and Investigation Service.

?We?re streamlining the operation of IEG and it will be now purely a policy making body, management and administrative office, and monitoring three services under its office,? said IEG chief Jairus Paguntalan.

He said the group would only have a chief of staff, a clerk and two secretaries to attend the day-to-day transactions.

?Right now all operatives of the IEG already moved to ESS and CIIS and from now on all operations will be conducted by them [CIIS and ESS] and the auditing of warehouses will be done by Warehouse Audit and Monitoring Unit,? he added. ?So, no more operations for EIG... no more overlapping.?

The move came two weeks after Commissioner Napoleon Morales put Paguntalan as IEG officer in charge, replacing deputy commissioner Celso Templo, who retired on Jan. 9. Joel E. Zurbano