A three-day international workshop moderated by world-class facilitators began in Mbankomo yesterday, July 22.

Senior customs officials in the country are currently being schooled on strategies they can embrace at work to uphold ethics and improve governance at individual and national levels. This is within the framework of a three-day (July 22-24) international workshop on individual and professional ethics in the customs administration that went underway at the CAF training centre in Mbankomo yesterday July 22.

Organised by the Customs Ethics and Governance Promotion Committee of the customs department in collaboration with international partners; Advocate International and Pointman Leadership Institute, the workshop seeks to arm Chiefs of Sector and Chiefs of Division of the customs administration with the necessary tools to consolidate achievements and improve their personal for efficiency in service delivery and revenue collection.

Speaking during the opening ceremony, the Director General of Customs, Minette Libom Li Likeng, said the vision of the customs administration is to ensure modern, dynamic, transparent and efficient customs services piloted by honest, impartial and competent officials who put a high premium on responsible behaviour and respect of the law and public property. "This workshop is very important for us because we are already in the fight against corruption. We have been working tooth and nail to uphold ethics, ensure good governance and combat corruption within the customs administration. But we cannot say that we have wholly attained our objectives," she said. The still-visible pockets of resistance from hard-to-die habits, she noted, will be combated vigorously. "We are privileged to be trained by two very important international institutes in charge of integrity. It will help us to consolidate our achievements and collectively embrace the virtue of integrity in the customs administration," Libom Li Likeng said.

The President of the Customs Ethics and Governance Promotion Committee, Hon. Daniel Claude Abate and the workshop facilitators like Henri Minder and Quiistus Smit of Pointman Leadershship Institute, all agreed that problems of ethics and governance are universal and need concerted actions to be dealt with. When one person in a department fails in character, he fails the whole department, they underscored, stating the necessity to encourage people to work on their own character and that of their organisations.