Velma Ricketts Walker will begin serving as Jamaica’s new commissioner of customs next Monday morning determined to continue the agency’s transformation into a modern entity committed to facilitating its customers’ needs.

“Our role as Customs should be to meet the needs of the public, and if it is that the rules and regulations are not suitable, then, while we’re not the policymakers, we have the power, I think, to influence them,” Ricketts Walker told the

Jamaica Observer yesterday shortly after her appointment was made public by the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service.

Ricketts Walker, the ministry said in a news release, has more than 17 years experience in Customs administration, trade facilitation, risk analysis, strategic planning, international trade, security, compliance and enforcement.

In 2011, she served as assistant commissioner, compliance and enforcement with the Jamaica Customs Agency and was previously employed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a revenue administration adviser, assisting regional Customs administrations with development and strengthening of their risk management programmes and organisational strategic reform.

The ministry added that the new customs commissioner is also an IMF-certified and trained Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool Assessor.

In her discussion with the Observer, Ricketts Walker said she was “excited” about returning to the agency which she first joined in 1999 as a trainee in its Line Officer Programme.

“It was for an entire year. You were considered a trainee and got a stipend, so the records will actually say that I started in 2000, but I refuse to give up that one year,” she said.

Ricketts Walker acknowledged that the job as commissioner will no be easy, as “there’s a lot to do”. However, she is happy that she has support.

“It’s an area that I have a lot of knowledge of,” she said. “There’s a lot of system transformation that has been going on, so the greatest part of it is to transform the people to make the organisation into a performance-driven organisation, and they have been trying, so it’s to continue that motivation, that drive.”

Ricketts Walker replaces Major Richard Reese, who served in the post from May 1, 2012 to February this year. His departure resulted in Pamella Folkes acting in the post.