Profile: Frank Ferguson, Crown Agents

Q: How long have you been in Bulgaria?

A: I came to Bulgaria three-and-a-half years ago. Only within the past six months did I become principal customs adviser and team leader of Crown Agents' (CA) Bulgarian Customs Modernisation Programme.

Before that, I was CA deputy principle customs adviser for a year, and before that I was in charge of all CA mobile teams.

In fact, I still work for British Customs as an assistant chief investigation officer, where I started work 31 years ago. My background is in the investigation discipline.  For the duration of the current project, I am on loan to Crown Agents.
Two or three years before coming to Bulgaria, I worked in Brussels as a national expert on drugs trafficking. That is why I have very wide and broad international experience in the field of customs.

Q: In that sense, how do you see your coming to Bulgaria?

A: It is a great privilege for me. When Bulgaria becomes an EU member I will have some satisfaction I hope that, together with my colleagues, we have contributed to that. That is what motivates me working here.

I am here as chief adviser in the sense that CA personnel here do not have any executive authority. We are very mindful of the fact that the people we advise in Bulgaria’s Customs Administration (BCA) are very experienced people – the fact that the BCA is more than 100 years old speaks for itself. We have not come here to patronise anyone. Our job is to add to Bulgarian customs officers’ knowledge. I have worked in more than 20 countries before coming here and I can say that I have never been happier than working here, on a personal and professional level, because we all have one goal: to see Bulgaria in the EU.

Q: Are Bulgarians open to your advice?

A: Absolutely. In many senses we are pushing an open door. We get very good co-operation. At my level, I see Assen Assenov the director general of BCA on very regular basis and I update him with what’s happening. This is what is taking this project forward.

Q: Do you think that the work of Bulgarian Customs is well reported in the press?

A: As far as I can see, there is a lot of publicity about customs’ work in Bulgaria. I read the newspapers every day and, compared to any other countries, including my own, there is more publicity on customs than I have seen anywhere else. This shows transparency and it is a good reflection on the population of Bulgaria. This also makes the authorities more accountable.

Q: Organised crime is a sensitive issue in Bulgaria. What is your view on the subject, considering that you advise Bulgarian Customs?

A: I am well aware from my background and experience that corruption is present anywhere. People tend to think that such issues affect only their own country, but I can assure you that it happens everywhere. What I can say about Bulgaria is that there is willingness here to reform. That is the purpouse of my job. I am here to lead a modernisation programme of Bulgarian Customs. People with whom I work in Bulgaria are very well educated and motivated to work. With such resources I am sure the problem ultimately will be overcome.

Q: What is Crown Agents most noticeable success of 2005?

A: The overwhelming indicator for success was the record receipt of customs revenue by the BCA, which was close to five billion leva. I would like to think that CA has had a significant contribution to that.

Another good achievement from last year was that, together with the BCA, we are now working towards sustainable reform; by that I mean that in the last quarter of last year, with Mr. Assenov’s blessing, we agreed on several principles.

One such principle is the selecting and training of Bulgarian customs officers as future leaders of the mobile teams. At present, CA advises the mobile teams, but we will not be here forever. Probably, in about a year we will all be gone. We have already trained and selected six people as future leaders of the mobile teams and that process will continue. We have also agreed on structural reform. The mobile teams will be regionalised and not just based in Sofia. So I think that the reform process together with the record revenues were the two key successes from last year.

Q: Some say that the growth of revenues is not because of improved revenue collection but because of improved imports. What is your response to that?

A: I know about those criticisms and we will not ignore them. This summer we will do independent analyses of the economic influences on customs. We want to find out what the most significant contributory factors are. We are very confident that this will show that CA is major factor in the rise of the revenue.

Q: The Crown Agents contract with the Bulgarian state expires at the end of 2006. If you were asked to extend your presence here what would you do?

A: Indeed our contract expires at the end of 2006 and this is what matters to us. We were asked to deliver a certain amount of work by that time and will do it. If anyone around the world asks for CA’s assistance we are ready to listen.

Q: In what areas there has not been enough progress in BCA?

A: That is a fair question. One of the things that we were asked to do was to issue a number of recommendations. Some of those recommendations have taken a little bit longer to implement than others and this is the only area of work that is taking more time than I thought it would. The reason for this is not because of lack of will by the BCA. On the contrary, the BCA officers are very open to us. Sometimes it is just the lack of resources.

Q: How do you think Bulgarian society feels about the presence of Crown Agents in Bulgaria?

A: Our original contract was due to expire by the end of 2004.The fact that we were awarded a new contract put an end to any criticism that we could have had. I think there is always resistance in every society to change and to people coming from outside. I think that generally the public opinion is supportive of CA because we are trying to achieve the best for Bulgarians. We feel well accepted across society. For that reason we have tried to be more accessible. This year, we launched our own website in Bulgaria. Bulgaria is the only contract in the world that CA has got where we have our own local website: www.crownagents.bg