KARACHI: Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) has advised National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to expeditiously complete investigation regarding corruption allegations against the senior Customs officers.
In the last 4 years, the green channel facility was largely misused causing huge revenue loss to the national exchequer. Moreover, the controlled smuggling facilitated influx of non-duty paid goods including contrabands in the country. There are reports senior officers including a member FBR, a Chief Collector and a Director General staged the entire scam.
Sources said a commission should be formed headed by Customs Officers such as Agha Jawwad or Gul Rehman as these are competent and reputed officers to investigate the corruption carried on by the Directorate General of Customs Intelligence & Investigation. Moreover, Customs officers including Dr. Adnan, Mohammad Ashraf, Tahir Qureshi, Nasrullah Wazir, Irfan Javed, Farrukh Sajjad and Abdul Waheed Marwat should also be taken on board in the Commission. Two other officials including Inspector Hamid Habib and Syed Aamir Shabbir are said to have evidence regarding corruption and malpractice of Director General Shaukat Ali.
Similarly, in order to properly investigate the Green Channel scam run by Chief Collector Abdul Rasheed Sheikh, a Commission should be formed headed by a person like former Director General Reforms Mohammad Saleem, who has been a very competent officer. The commission should also include Shahnaz Maqbool, Wajid Ali, Yaseen Murtaza, Saeed Watto, Masood Ahmed and Falik Sher, Imran Rasool, Abeer Javed. Brother of Abdul Rasheed Sheikh Mansoor Sheikh owner of M/s E-Movers should also be investigated as he undertook large scale smuggling and replacement of transshipment cargo. The system audit of WeBOC by technically sound team of experts should also be conducted through this Commission.
Such Commissions can play an instrumental role in unearthing the wrongdoings and corruption carried on in a very organized manner and taking benefits of technicalities to cover the dirty business.
It may be mentioned here that companies who were not eligible for green channel facility were given green channel status and scrap consignments, commercial goods and miscellaneous goods were put in green channel, as earlier these were never cleared from green channel. Officers who detected the scam were moved to bad postings. Legal committees were barred from contesting cases resulting in loss to exchequer. Contravention reports against fraudulent importers were withdrawn to protect their profile.