No early closure for Customs on Friday

The Customs Department is among the busiest in the Public Service at the end of the year. They are responsible for seeing to the goods shipped to Belize from around the world and especially the United States; get to their destinations on time. So while Customs officers would love to be off their jobs from ten a.m. on Friday as has been reported to News Five, the reality is they will be there as long as it takes. Today, we sought out Comptroller of Customs Colin Griffith and his deputies Thomas Young and Estella Leslie, who pointed us to a circular memorandum from the Ministry of the Public Service, specifically C.E.O. Doctor Peter Allen, released on December fourth. It confirms that closing hours for December twenty-second and twenty-ninth are twelve noon for all government departments. In practice, however, Customs is an essential service and so officers assigned to the Port of Belize Limited will leave at one p.m. or whenever the last container is complete. At the Philip Goldson International Airport hours will be six a.m. to six p.m. as normal, while at the official border points it is twenty-four hour service.