KARACHI: MCC Port Qasim has foiled a bid to evade duty and taxes amounting to Rs10.25 million by M/s Al-Aziz & Co through mis declaration.

M/s Al-Aziz filed Goods Declaration seeking clearance of a consignment comprising tyres with flaps of China. Imported uploaded a packing list of one particular container and the system selected that particular container for examination. The examination found the goods as per the packing list.

One container was marked for examination and it was as per the declaration, eight were going through green channel.

Collector Saeed Akram had the information that the importer was involved in methodical mis-declaration through jumbling of high value items into lesser quantity and low value items into higher quantity. Saeed Akram formed and R&D team headed by Additional Collector Yasin Murtaza comprising Deputy Collector Ehsan Shah, Principal Appraiser Shahid Rizvi and Appraising Officer Anwer Zeb. They conducted examination of all the containers that there was mis-declaration.

Had this willful misdeclaration had gone undetected, exchequer would have suffered a loss of Rs10.25 million.

Such cases are a big question mark on the risk management system (RMS) as only those containers are marked for examination, which are as per the declaration. It needs to be looked into to improve the system.