Syria’s Central Authority for Supervision and Inspection announced an investigation into a 2016 case, during the former regime’s rule, involving the entry of a prohibited material into Syria that included “grave” customs violations, with fines and duties exceeding 16 million U.S. dollars, or roughly 176 billion Syrian pounds.
According to a statement published on Monday, 3 November, on the authority’s official website, the investigation indicated signs of deception regarding the goods’ country of origin through stamps and certificates that did not reflect the true source.
The authority said the file concerns the import of iron bars totaling 6,236,400 kilograms.
It explained that multiple technical experts at different levels were consulted and concluded there was a discrepancy between the declared origin and the results of laboratory tests, a point the party involved acknowledged after being confronted with the findings.
Under the customs law then in force, the violation was deemed smuggling and origin fraud, since it involved importing a prohibited material at the time with false origin data. The duties and fines due for the violation amount to 16,002,694 U.S. dollars, which is approximately 176,960,025 Syrian pounds.
Given the scale of the damage and after assigning responsibility, the authority said it took precautionary measures to ensure recovery of public funds and to hold those responsible to account.
Financial and technical violations
The Central Authority for Supervision and Inspection also revealed financial and technical violations exceeding 32 billion Syrian pounds within oil and gas supply contracts concluded during the former regime’s rule.
In an October post on Facebook, the authority said a specialized inspection mission audited the contractual relationship between a public company operating in the oil and gas sector and a public institution for trading metals and building materials, within supply contracts that covered more than 2,500 high-value materials and equipment items.
According to the mission’s findings, the trading institution resorted to secondary suppliers to meet the needs of the oil company’s plants in the Badiya Homs (Homs Desert, central Syria) due to lack of stock in its warehouses, which led to large price differentials reaching 32 billion Syrian pounds, about 2.8 million U.S. dollars, in addition to technical notes on noncompliance of certain materials with the required specifications.
The authority said technical expert committees took part in reviewing prices and specifications against prevailing rates at the time to determine the extent of the damage to public funds, and confirmed that responsibilities had been assigned and precautionary measures taken against those involved from the two entities’ managements and the secondary suppliers, including provisional asset freezes and travel bans to recover the affected sums.
Corruption at a public bank
On 8 October, the Central Authority for Supervision and Inspection announced it had uncovered violations in the mechanism for disbursing and distributing cash during a compliance visit to one of the public banks, without naming the bank.
In a Facebook post, the authority said the visit revealed violations and overreach in how cash amounts were allocated to specific groups at the expense of others, noting the presence of “favoritism and unjustified exemptions.”
The value of these exemptions granted to companies and individuals exceeded 10 billion Syrian pounds, roughly 770,000 U.S. dollars, according to the authority.
The authority confirmed it had taken several measures against the violators, including:
- Suspending several employees from duty
- Referring violations to investigation for completion of legal procedures
- Proposing executive solutions to reduce crowding and ensure pensions are delivered to recipients easily and with dignity
