KARACHI: Chief Collector Quetta Chaudry Zulfiqar in consultation with Collector Preventive Collector Dr. Iftikhar has stopped the auction of confiscated smuggled (non customs duty paid) vehicles to discourage the self-designed vehicles amnesty scheme by the owners of smuggled vehicles.
[the_ad id=”31605″]It was notices by the authorities that auction, of confiscated vehicles, was not securing the revenues. Further probe found that there used to be just one bidder for each vehicle at the auction. There is a practice in Baluchistan that whenever authorities seize and confiscate a smuggled vehicle and the same is put on auction, only the owner of that vehicle bids for the vehicle at the auction. Since there is no competition, Customs has to release the vehicle to the only bid, which is far lower than the leviable duty and taxes. Hence the smuggled vehicle is cleaned under this self-designed amnesty scheme.
An official said there was an understanding among the people that only the owner of the confiscated vehicle bids at the auction, and no one else poses the competition. A large number of persons got their vehicles intentionally confiscated and got them released through auction with a clean chit. In order to end this practice, authorities have stopped auction of confiscated vehicles.
It may be mentioned here that legal import of vehicles has declined significantly and smuggling has surged in the same proportion after the government imposed certain restrictions on the import of used and second hand cars.
An official informed that these elements were legally importing one car, getting it registered and then two more vehicles use the same registration numbers and documents to hoodwink the traffic police and other authorities.
The official said it was confirmed that at least three vehicles were using the same registration numbers and documents. Customs recently seized two luxury vehicles, under use of political figures including a former Sindh minister, which had tampered numbers.
The official said Customs authorities had stopped lodging FIRs against the owners of smuggled vehicles and vehicles with tampered numbers and only confiscated the vehicles. The official said the Customs was extremely short of staff, and they could not pursue the cases at courts, as over a dozen smuggled vehicles were seized each day. Lodging of FIR was a deterrent, which now doesn’t exist.
Baluchistan police is reportedly involved in vehicles smuggling. An official said that whenever Police seized smuggled vehicles they did not handed over the same to Customs and made deals with the owners and released the vehicles.
The government should allow commercial import of cars from China under a currency swap agreemwnt, as this would discourage smuggling of vehicles and most importantly break the monopoly of local assemblers without putting any burden on the country’s dollar reserves.