TRANSPARENCY AND PUBLIC PARTICIPATION: BUILDING PUBLIC TRUST IN DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF CUSTOMS AND EXCISE

Widespread negative sentiments from the public towards the Directorate General of Customs and Excise (DGCE) in 2024 and recent cases of corruption and money laundering further pejorate the low level of trust the public has for the institution. Academics and international institutions suggested that transparency, particularly deliberative transparency, can increase accountability and foster public trust towards the government. Unfortunately, the DGCE appears to underutilize strategies and tools available for enhancing transparency, which in the long turn may undermine the nations’ foreign trade facilitation efforts. Our desk research provides 5 examples of public consultation programs from Australia, The United Kingdom, Singapore, New Zealand, and The European Union. We analysed the examples using the democracy cube (Fung, 2006) and compared them with our current findings in DGCE. The democracy cube can help DGCE determine the suitable strategy to achieve deliberative transparency through public participation/consultation. After several considerations are made, this paper recommends that DGCE adopt public consultation on a small scale as a pilot project.