DHS OIG Says Routine Maintenance of ACS Is Hard & Expensive, Need ACE
Government sources have confirmed that as reported in a September 2010 DHS OIG Information Technology Management Letter, routine maintenance of the Automated Commercial System (ACS) is increasingly difficult and expensive for a number of reasons, including its use of the COBAL programming language (a language that was created in 1959 and last revised in 1985).1 Sources add that a great deal of funding is also being used to sync ACS data with data in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
CBP Spending Millions on ACS Maintenance Alone
The Ofifce of Inspector Generao (OIG) states that only two vendors (two prime contractors and their subcontractors) support ACS, which limits CBP's ability to obtain maintenance services at a reasonable cost. During FY 2010, CBP spent nearly $12.1 million just to maintain ACS at its current level of functionality.
Many Known ACS Functionality Issues Are Unresolved
Due to these conditions and the delayed implementation of ACE, the DHS OIG reports that CBP has not resolved known ACS functionality issues concerning:
- drawback (no controls to detect and correct excessive drawback claims),
- importer compliance with in-bond (monitoring reports have not been developed and in-bonds are not automatically linked to the relevant entry or export in ACS),
- bond sufficiency (a claimant can potentially claim and receive an accelerated payment that exceeds the bond),
- unpaid assessments (ACS does not provide summary information of total unpaid assessments for duties, taxes, and fees,
- etc.
Problems in ACS Will Have to Wait for ACE Development for Resolution
The OIG recommends that the solution to these functionality issues lies with the development of ACE, stating that CBP needs to continue to modernize its business processes in ACE and work with stakeholders to develop and deploy functionality that allows CBP to fulfill its mission. The letter also recommends that CBP seek funds through the budget process to allow for this to happen.
1Revision dates from Wiki.
(See ITT's Online Archives 11122008 for summary of NCBFAA White Paper saying it is urgent and desirable for brokers to join ACE. See ITT's Online Archives 11101440 for summary of NCBFAA and CBP partnering to encourage the brokerage industry to move to ACE.)
(OIG-11-103, dated August 2011)