The Twenty-sixth Meeting of the Executive Committee decided:
(a) to urge all recipient Governments operating under Article 5 to expedite customs clearance and to refrain from levying any taxes or duties, in accordance with the terms of their agreement with the Implementing Agencies relating to the levying of taxes and duties on equipment and incremental costs during project implementation;
(b) to require the Implementing Agencies to explain what steps had been taken to prevent the occurrence of any customs clearance-problems in future project proposals;
(c) to consider payment of storage costs in excess of the project budget for the projects in Brazil, Kenya and Nigeria to be implemented by UNIDO, but not to approve any further project funding for those countries if any other customs-clearance issues were raised until assurances had been provided by the Government that the problems had been resolved and that any associated cost had been covered by the beneficiary or the Government;
(d) to urge Implementing Agencies to take appropriate measures to avoid other cases of excessive storage charges that caused implementation delays and to report back on any such cases to the Sub-Committee at its first meeting in 1999;
(e) also to urge UNDP to work with the Government of Egypt to resolve the taxation and customs clearance issue and not to approve any further funding for Egypt until the problem was resolved;
(f) to highlight the issue of taxation and customs clearance in its report with a view to drawing the attention of the Meeting of the Parties to the problem.
(UNEP/OzL.Pro/ExCom/26/70, Decision 26/3, para. 17).