KARACHI: Director Customs Valuation Karachi Wasif Memon has written a letter to MCC Appraisement West recommending to suspend the license of Clearing Agents M/s Basathia Impex (License No.786), as he tried to influence valuation procedure.
M/s Basathia Impex filed a petition to amend the Valuation Ruling No.873/2016, which determined the customs values of medium density fiber (MDF) board. When the exercise was initiated, the homework file of Valuation Ruling No.873/2016 could not be found. Deputy Collector Shoib Raza informed clearing agent Tanveer of M/s Basathia Impex that there would be a little delay as the file was being searched for. But, the clearing agent created a drama and started misbehaving. Additional Collector Imran Sajjad Bukhari was also present on the occasion.
Police was called to nab the person, but he managed to escape somehow. Later, Wasif Memon wrote to MCC Appraisement West to suspend the license of M/s Basathia Impex. [the_ad id=”31605″] Since there is no connection of clearing agents with the valuation directorate, so a policy is being framed that clearing agent without the proper authorization from the importer/exporter would not be entertained pertaining to valuation proceedings.
It may be mentioned here that because of low customs values of goods, several local manufacturers are now importing goods, which they sued to manufacture. Customs Valuation is now streamlining the values to being them at par with the international price trends. Therefore, the directorate is under severe pressure and hurdles are being created by the trade bodies as well as the judiciary.