Business View Caribbean | March 2021

80 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN MARCH 2021 Customs in the Collector General’s Department in 1982 at the age of 17 and served that department for the next 20 years. In 2002, the department was going through some restructuring and I was retired. I thought: what do I do now? At the age of 37, I was still pretty young. So it was a natural transition to using all that volume of knowledge and experience I’d obtained over the years in the systems, the laws, the regulations, and the processes to offer this service externally. To represent these standards and processes to clients who desire that type of service and guidance. “At the time I retired, I had just ended a program where I was being taught to train the trainers on a new valuation system. It was based on transaction value instead of a fair market value, which was the previous system. This was a total upheaval in terms of different ways of thinking, as it relates to documentation and what is accepted and what isn’t accepted. One benefit for me having received that training was that it was offered to staff but not fully available to brokers at the same level. So once I retired, I was asked by many brokerage organizations to train their staff in this new value system. In 2005, based on an exception clause embedded in the Customs regulations, I was awarded a broker’s license without having to do any further training. By virtue of the position I held prior to retirement, I was qualified to have my own license to operate as a Customs broker. Today, AT A GLANCE KERICK FARQUHARSON CUSTOMS BROKER WHAT: A highly regarded provider of Customs-related services WHERE: Montego Bay, Jamaica WEBSITE: www.kfcustomsbroker.com