KARACHI: Customs Intelligence Unit (CIU) of Model Customs Collectorate (MCC) of Port Muhammad Bin Qasim has foiled a bid of defrauding the authorities by wheat importers taking the advantage of flaws in online clearance system.
Sources at the collectorate said that the information was provided by Chairman FBR who directed the officials to keep vigilant on clearance of imported commodity.
As per details received to Customnews.pk, a shipping line on behalf of some wheat importers had provided false information of expected time of arrival and their clearing agents filed goods declaration much before the ship arrived in order to evade 20 percent regulatory duty and deprive the national exchequer about Rs280 million.[the_ad id=”31605″]The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on November 07, 2014 issued SRO 1015(I)/2014 to implement the decision taken by the Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet to impose regulatory duty at the rate of 20 percent ad valorem on the import of wheat falling under Pakistan Customs Tariff Heading 1001.1900 and 1001.9900 of the First Schedule to the Customs Act, 1969.
Sources said that shipping agent M. M. Marine fed the Vessel Intimation Report and Import General Manifest to WeBOC system on September 31 for import of 45,000 tons of wheat through Russian chartered ship MV Virginia.
Meanwhile, the agent on November 06, 2014 filed the expected time of arrival (ETA). Under the Section 79 of the Customs Act, 1969 the ship should arrive within 24 hours otherwise the ETA has not worthy and agent has to file it again.
On the same day the clearing agents including Ahmed Enterprises; Ever Luck; and Al Qasib filed the GDs.
The ship was carrying the commodity imported by the persons included: Masoom Floor Mill; Pacific Exim; Al Hamza Floor Mill; Ghareeb Sons; Hasan Rice Mill; Blest; Meskay; and MM Floor Mill.
The customs authorities thoroughly examine the import because in normal conditions the filing of ETA is ignored but in the instant case the ship arrived on November 12 and the importers were almost dodged the authorities to evade the due liability.
The authorities recovered half of the amount so far and remaining amount is under process.
In order to fix the responsibility on customs officials in negligence, the collectorate duty off including Principal Appraiser Asad Aleem and five appraisers namely Aneesur Rehman, Noor Muhammad Kaleem, Ghulam Yasin, Sareer uddin and Qamar Mubeen.
MCC Port Qasim foils bid to evade regulatory duty amounting Rs280 million on wheat import
