Packaging Puzzle

AN issue has arisen in a lawsuit filed by a local dairy packaging company, as to whether the Comptroller of Customs (COC) or the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers Association (TTMA)  has the legal authority to determine what imported goods are exempt from custom duties. On Friday last, Justice Carlton Best granted Ramsaran Dairy Products Limited leave in the San Fernando High Court to seek judicial review of a decision by the COC to allow the TTMA to issue letters of “unavailability” to importers. Such a letter verifies that the goods to be imported, are not manufactured locally. In his application for judicial review filed by attorney Anand Ramlogan in the Sub-Registry, San Fernando, the company’s owner, Rajnanan Ramsaran, stated that being a regular importer of polyethylene coated paper packages for his range of milk and fruit juices, he had always acted on the COC instructions on where he should obtain his “letter of unavailability.” Section 10 of the New Schedule of the Customs Act,  exempt all containers (packages), except those manufactured locally, from custom duties.

Ramsaran stated in an affidavit that on instructions from the COC, he always, like other such importers, obtained his “letter of unavailability” from the Caribbean Packaging Company (CPC). CPC, being the only package manufacturing company here, verified it was not making the polyethylene coated paper packages Ramsaran imported which allowed the COC to exempt Ramsaran from the required custom duties. However, in his affidavit, Ramsaran stated that in January 2003, the COC issued a notice: “Please be advised that with immediate effect, all ‘letters of unavailability’ required under Section 10 of the Second Schedule, must be issued by the TTMA.” Ramlogan told Justice Best on Friday that the COC cannot designate a public function under the law  to a private body like the TTMA. Ramsaran contended in his affidavit that the TTMA charged him $230 for his letter which he never had to pay for prior to the COC’s directive. Justice Best granted the leave and set the matter down for trial.