KARACHI: Member Customs Nisar Mohammad Khan visited Customs House Karachi on Monday had discussions with Chief Collectors, Collectors and Directors pertaining to the transfers and postings of BS-17 and BS-18 officers of Pakistan Customs Service.
It may be mentioned here that Nisar Mohammad Khan has already posted well reputed and honest officers in Appraisement South and it is expected that these officers would be reshuffled within the Appraisement south.
It was learnt that the officers had had been serving their offices for the last three years approximately would be moved.
Moreover, BS-16 Customs officers are set to be reshuffled on a large scale. An official said that certain officers had been serving in a single collectorate for the last around 20 years.
Many of these officers have made links with unscrupulous elements. Evidence suggests that a number of BS-16 officers are patronizing mis-declaration, under-invoicing and even smuggling for obvious reasons.
Some of BS-16 officers have made assets worth hundreds of million rupees and inflicted irreparable revenue loss to the exchequer.
A deputy superintendent of MCC Quetta is being considered for promotion to the post of Superintendent. It is likely that he may be moved to Gwadar or Hyderabad.
Particularly, BS-16 officers of MCC Quetta have become partners with smuggling and are backed by political influential of Balochistan.
Most of them remain posted at Taftan, which is the hub of smuggling. Although Collector Quetta Saeed Jadoon is making commendable efforts to control the situation but unavailability of WeBOC at Taftan enables unscrupulous elements taking benefit of situation with the help and support of the officials.
An official said that people in Balochistan defend smuggling claiming that smuggling run the economic cycle of the province. However, this menace only benefits a few and causes a much bigger loss to the entire nation.
It has been learnt that Appraising staff posted at MCC Port Qasim, MCC Appraisement East and MCC Appraisement West for the last 15-20 years are set to be moved to Post Clearance Audit (PCA), Directorate of Customs Valuation, Customs Adjudication, Intelligence & Investigation (I&I), Internal Audit, MCC Exports etc,.
It is anticipated that the transfers of BS-17 and BS-18 officers would be notified in the first week of October while BS-16 officers would be reshuffled by the end of October.