KARACHI: A consignment comprising 10 containers imported by M/s Sufi Steel Industries, which had been blocked by MCC Preventive because the GD had been wrongly filed by WeBOC system with MCC Preventive, has been cleared by MCC Port Qasim through Green Channel.

Recently, a consignment was being cleared through the green channel  from MCC Preventive. The serious anomaly in this case was that the GD had a prefix of KRPV i.e. Preventive Collectorate, whereas it was supposed to be filed in the MCC Port Qasim and assessed/cleared from there.

Goods were declared to be iron and steel remeltable turning scrao and the duty and taxes paid were Rs3.64 million. The consignment was stopped and cancelled, a Contravention Report was served on M/s Sufi Steel Industries.

M/s Sufi steel Industries again filed the GD with MCC Port Qasim through their agent M/s Magnet of Business International. Surprisingly, the consignment was cleared through the Green Channel without any examination.

An official said the importer had a good profile and had filed 391 GDs so far, out of which 337 GDs were examined by the Customs authorities. During the course, M/s Sufi Steel Industries was served with three Contravention Reports.

The official said Green Channel status was accorded to very high profile importers, and once a Contravention Report is served leading to Order-in-Original imposing fine/penalty, the system automatically switched the green channel status to yellow channel status of such importer.

However, despite recently being served an Order-in-Original and imposition of fine/penalty, the green channel status of the said importer remained intact, and the consignment was cleared. It is interesting to note the WeBOC system did not mark even one container of the total ten for examination, while the officers/officials at MCC Port Qasim also did not conducted any examination.

An official said scrap was a very sensitive importable goods as in past large scale smuggling and mis-declaration and under-invoicing had been done in the garb of scrap clearing through the green channel. It needs to be investigated how the consignment of M/s Sufi Steel was cleared through the Green Channel at MCC Port Qasim.