KARACHI: Additional Director Reforms Rehmatullah Vistro has tendered his resignation due to some personal reasons.

Vistro is a highly reputed and competent officer. His resignation has not been accepted by FBR as yet.

An official said officers were resigning because there was no carrier growth in Customs and officers were not getting promotions.

Earlier, Additional Collectors Faisal Khan, Shahab Imam, Lubna Jafar, Irfan Sarfaraz, Ashir Azeem Gill resigned.

Gill had established a trucking company in Canada before he resigned.

Official said Vistro’s batch mates in other services had been promoted to Grade-20. There are no opportunities of promotions in Customs as there are no vacancies.

CTP 30 officers of IRS are now in Grade 20, but in Customs CTP 26 officers are still in Grade-19.

FBR endeavoured to deal with this issue and divided collectorates and created new positions, but still there is no scope of promotions in Customs.
Officers are of the view that CSPs joining Customs should at least reach Grade-21, but it seems they would retire in Grade-20.

When Iqbal Muneeb (late) was promoted to Grade-20, his course mates had reached Grade-22.
Iqbal Muneeb had a very difficult carrier and he was often victimized by FBR.

Affairs are very alarming at Customs. Although exchequer is not being hurt at the moment but traders are now being bothered and milked in other ways.