KARACHI: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has white listed a number of IMEIs against which Customs Clearance document i.e. Goods Declaration (GD) are not visible in the WeBOC data.
“This raises the vital question about the mode of the clearance of all such mobile sets which are presumed to be smuggled either through misuse of Green Channel facility or mis-declaration,” an official said.
Directorate General of Reforms and Automation has recommended to the Secretary (Reforms & Automation), Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to order a comprehensive inquiry into the issue from all angles and perspectives and fix responsibility, so that such incidents are not repeated at the cost of legitimate government revenue.
According to details, a telephonic call was received by Senior Manager (Ops) PRAL from Director Intelligence Islamabad requesting for verification of an Airway Bill indicating country of origin “UAE”.
Scrutiny of WeBOC data revealed that the Airway Bill details communicated by Director Intelligence Islamabad were not present in the data.
Findings were communicated to the Director Intelligence Islamabad who subsequently forwarded an email to Senior Manager (Ops) PRAL requesting for data of NOCs/COCs not attached with any goods declaration.
Statistical data analysis yielded that after data cleansing of BL field filled in by PTA, a total of 638 NOCs/COCs against 1.01 million mobile sets are being reflected without Goods Declaration.
Further scrutiny as reported by Senior Manager (Ops) PRAL is underway.
However, since the scope of audit of such NOCs/COCs is a mammoth exercise, and the Senior Manager PRAL with Ins existing load of work has expressed difficulty in reconciliation of data to arrive at final figures.
Technical team of PRAL has been requested to coordinate with the Technical team of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) for development of the format of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) message that will be generated for confirming GD clearance status after full and final payment of duty and taxes for transmission to PTA’s DIRBS system.