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Samoa Customs Minister wants new system

The Customs division of the Ministry of Revenue is to “redesign their system” and ensure banking is done daily to avoid a repeat of the events of last week. Describing it as “a terrible week,” Minister of Revenue, Tuiloma Pule Lameko said he has ordered Customs' system to be “redesigned as soon as possible.”Speaking to Sunday Samoan yesterday, Tuiloma said the two incidents at Customs last week made him look deeper into ways to eliminate it in future.First, he said he ordered Customs to redesign the system in terms of banking. He wants it done daily.“This is one of the Ministries with millions of dollars collected everyday and I have looked into mobile banking so that no more money will be stolen from there,” Tuiloma said.He was referring to the $1.4m that went missing at Customs on Tuesday morning and was recovered again on Tuesday night by Police.“I’m just thankful that most of the money has been recovered because what can the Customs do if the whole money cannot be found?” he said.“I told them from now on, mobile banking will be the safest way to make sure it won’t happen again in the future.”Tuiloma told Sunday Samoan that a safe room should also be built to make sure all the money collected each day is secured.