An angry businessman claims a new automated system aimed at streamlining Bermuda's Customs procedures has caused delays in businesses accessing their imports.

Richard Powell said of the CAPS (Customs Automated Processing System), which was rolled out on April 1: "This April Fool's joke has got to stop."

Mr. Powell runs Bermuda Breads and also imports seafood by plane from the United States.

He claims he was told his old trader ID number would be replaced by a new registration number that was compliant with CAPS but then told it didn't need to be.

He said he arrived at the airport last Wednesday only to be told his old number was not valid after all.

Next, he said, Customs officials gave him a replacement number that would not work on his computer when filling out his forms.

His real concern was that his "highly perishable" seafood was being detained by the process.

Mr. Powell was initially told it would take until Thursday morning to have it released — although he eventually got it after around two hours.

"If I'd not jumped up and down I probably would have been waiting until [yesterday]," he claimed. He says he was told that failure to notify importers of changes to the numbers had contributed to the delay.

Mr. Powell further alleged that another importer waiting for day-old chicks also experienced delays due to the new system.

"It's ridiculous, day-old chicks in boxes two inches high sitting in the freight shed while one of the freight forwarders was trying to get them delivered," he said. "Three hours later they were still there. The air turned blue in that room on a number of occasions. People eventually walked out in disgust. The whole thing was just poorly planned. They should never have put it on Islandwide in one day."

On Thursday, he said the problems continued and he had to wait eight working hours for his containers of bread when it usually takes four.

"I made a simple mistake of having a number three instead of a number two in the box that designates the number of containers," he explained. He believes that because he had to go back to Customs to make the change instead of being able to do it by e-mail, his order had to go back into the system, causing the delay.

This, he said, delayed his own deliveries to customers in Hamilton.

The CAPS system, which has cost millions of dollars to implement, was first announced ten years ago. However, programming problems have caused long-term delays in bringing it on-line. The idea of the electronic processing system is to speed up the entry of imported goods, reject improperly-processed documents and flag high-risk shipments.

According to Mr. Powell, it is also being used "to collect a lot of useless data that no one looks at anyway".

He claimed: "They need to know how many heads of Romaine lettuce are used each month in Bermuda so some farmer in Texas can go and plant another 50 acres to satisfy Bermuda's demand. Our consumption in Bermuda is so small on the world market that it cannot even be measured. Over the past ten years we have gone from waiting (for goods) from between 20 minutes to one hour, to two hours, and then four hours, and now eight hours and this is progress?

"I would like Bermuda Customs to tell me how to clear the highly perishable seafood shipments with a system like this."

Customs did not respond to a request for comment.