PM Sellal: “Customs agents must get out of their offices to stamp out smuggling”

During his inspection visit on Monday to In Guezzam’s projected customs inspectorate in southern Algeria, Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal expressed discontent at the outcome of the anti-smuggling operations conducted since the start of the year by customs agents in the region saying that such operations have so far not yielded satisfying results as they were not up to the mark.

Mr Sellal urged to this effect the customs officers on duty there to get out of their offices more often than not in order to hunt down smugglers on the ground saying that field operations against all forms of trafficking should be upgraded and boosted.

The local customs General Manager said in a reaction that his intervention squads needed more human and material resources in order to be able to boost the anti-smuggling drive in the whole region as the latter is “vast and characterized by scorching weather conditions”, as he put it.

Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal ended his tour of In-Guezzam (province of Tamanrasset, 1970-km south of Algiers) and Bordj Badji-Mokhtar (province of Adrar, 1543-km south of Algiers), as part of one-day working visit during which he assessed the progress achieved in the achievement of the different socioeconomic projects in the Algerian deep South.

During this visit, which was part of the implementation of the programme of the President of the Republic, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the Prime minister inspected and inaugurated several projects in the sectors of housing, agriculture, energy, health, youth, sports, justice and finance.

In the sub-wilaya of In-Guezzam (400 km south of Tamanrasset), Sellal inspected the project of Customs Inspectorate and inaugurated a youth centre.

The Premier also inspected the project of a court in In-Guezzam and the construction site of 400 rural houses and the project of 100 social housing units.

Mr Sellal then visited a private farm 40km from In-Guezzam.

In the region of Bordj Badji-Mokhtar (800 km south of Adrar), the Prime minister will inspected a 13.7 MW power plant, a 60-bed hospital worth DZD 1.3 billion.

Mr Sellal also inaugurated a sports hall and inspected the project of a swimming pool, as well as the project of 360 new housing units.

At the end of the visit, the Prime Minister, who was accompanied by a large ministerial delegation, chaired a broad-based meeting with local officials and elected representatives of the two southern regions.