FBR requested to allow setting up customs check posts along entry points of Karachi

KARACHI: The Chief Collector of Model Customs Collectorate (MCC) Preventive has requested the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to allow two check posts to create deterrence against entry of smuggled goods into Karachi.
Sources told Customnews.pk that the collector preventive in August sent a letter to FBR chairman for preventing illegal trade and realizing government revenue lost in smuggling and requested that a bulk of smuggled goods reaching from Quetta through Hub were being dumped at Yousuf Goth near Karachi but Pakistan Customs had not deployed its staff to check the goods movement.
The sources said that the FBR would soon issue approval for setting up the check posts at Super Highway and Hub River Road.
Customs officials said that the request was made by the collectorate because the markets in Karachi and all around the country were flooded with foreign goods but the collected revenue did not match with the imports.
The officials said that goods were being transported illegally despite strong check at ‘Naka Khari’ by the Coast Guards and presence of other agencies including CID and FIA. The officials said that these goods may have included the arms that had resulted in serious law and order situation in the city.
They said that Balochistan province was disturbed for the past many years and controlling the situation at borders especially the movement of illegal goods was very difficult. On the other hand mafia involved in these smuggling are strong enough and the law enforcement agencies were unable to make their control over them, they added.
“Since it is difficult to stop at borders areas in Balochistan, but it is easy to stop those supplies entering Karachi where they get big market,” an official said.
The official said that in illegal goods could make their ways through two major routs one is Quetta to Karachi and other one is Quetta to Sukkur. The second route is used for transporting goods in Punjab and upper areas of the country.
The illegal trade had cost the country immensely and the local manufacturing activities had become to a stand still besides incurring huge revenue losses to national exchequer. Last year in a meeting with customs officials, the then FBR chairman had stated that the customs officials were not equipped with latest methodology to prevent smuggling besides the training also outdated to skilled the staff to counter such activities.
The chairman had also stated that the preventing smuggling the customs needed young blood and most of the officials deputed were aged, besides there was need to appoint women customs officials to depute those places where male officials had no reach.