KARACHI: Trade facilitation was top priority of the Federal Board of Revenue after revenue generation, said Dr. Muhammad Ashfaq Ahmed here yesterday addressing at the welcome dinner of Karachi Customs Agents Association (KCAA).
He patiently listened to the speech of Patron In-chief of KCAA Haji Asif and President KCAA Saifullah Khan who highlighted the problems faced by members of their organization. He held out an assurance that all genuine problems would be solved soon in consultation with KCAA.
Earlier President of KCAA, Saifullah Khan in his speech raised a number of issues including increase in time limit of provisional license from six months to 2 years.
Due to a case in the SHC, the examination of licence is not conducted since a long time and the licences are being issued on provisional basis for a period of six month, whereas the Rule 15(9) empower the licensing authority to renew the licence for 6 months or till such time the examination is not conducted, he informed the Chairman FBR requesting that renewal period of provisional licence by increased to two years with the provisional status.
The second demand pertained to issuance of Customs Agents Licenses on Collectorate basis or All Pakistan Basis (Country side) subject to the rule. Whereas the trader are allowed to clear their consignments through Self Clearance with a fee of Rs.500/= only. He requested amending the rules and issuance of the new licenses on all Pakistan basis and also transfer the status of all old licenses to all Pakistan basis (country wide) with the same amount of security deposit which was pledge at the time of issuing of licence.
The President also sought enhacement of weight tolerance from 5% to 10% and contravention should not be made where the impact of duty and taxes upto Rs.500,000/=. The other demands include framing of Terms of Reference for newly created Directorate of Law and Prosecution and tasking this directorate to pleaded case before tribunal and adjudicating authorities, consulting the association before making any change in the Act or Rules regarding Customs Agents. KCAA president also demanded that Budgetary proposals given by the Association should be incorporated the Federal Budget. A demand was also made for upgrading the Customs Lab as per International standards and sample may not be forwarded to outside the Custom House Laboratory.
Another major demand was framing if rules for self clearance.
Khurram Ejaz, Independent Director Pakistan Single Window (PSW), Chief Collector Enforcement, South Abdul QadirMemon, Chief Collector Appraisement South Wajid Ali also spoke on the occasion and assured the KCAA that its members would be facilitated in their lawful activities.
Besides large number of members of the association, the dinner was attended by Collector Appraisement West Tahir Qureshi, Collector PMBQ Ashhad Jawwad, Collector Exports, PMBQ Aamir Thaheem, Collector Export Karachi Mr Raza, Director Customs Intelligence Saquif Saeed, Director IPR Naima Batool, Director Law Zeba Azhar, Director Valuation Syed Fawwad, Collector Enforcement, Karachi Feroz Aslam Junejo and others.