KARACHI: Directorate of Transit Trade detected and stayed auction of banned and contraband goods being held in the garb of plastic products and dish antennas at PICT. The goods which were being auctioned included combat boots, camouflage fabric, caps; water proof fabric; camouflage rain gear; attachment of weapons; rifle scopes; laser scopes; dish antennas, and PVC panels.
On reports of misdoings in the auction section, Former Director Transit Trade had made Assistant Director Shahid Rizvi in-charge of the auction. Another well reputed appraising Zeeshan Wazir was also assigned auction.
On the directives of Assistant Director Shahid Rizvi, Appraising Officer Zeeshan Wazir conducted scrutiny of delivery order.
Zeeshan Wazir, a new batch officer, counter-checked the data of the consignments auctioned on WeBOC and found there were banned items in these containers. Afterwards, adjudication authority ordered for confiscation of goods. But the terminal operator PICT hadn’t physically confiscated the goods as importer didn’t cleared the goods.
Whereas examination report for auction mentioned only two items against total 23 items confiscated.
Zeeshan Wazir is a very well reputed officer of the newest batch of Appraising Officers. There are several new batch appraising officer whom have earned reputation including Shahid Hasan, Ilyas Gichki, Kaleem Chatha, Faisal Bashir, Huban Chaudry, Mujahid Khitran, Faraz Ahmed. They have detected many cases.
Appraising Officer Zaman jamali had arranged the auction, and in his examination report for auction, Jamali mentioned the goods to be plastic hangers, toilet brushes, plastic profile, dish antennas. He also under declared the weight of the goods. Based on the examination report, Assistant Director had approved the auction.
Seeing the scrutiny details, Shahid Rizvi alerted the Director Feroz Alam Junejo and the auction was immediately stayed.
If not detected the government would suffer loss of millions of rupees; besides national security risk as the arms and camouflage uniform could be used in any terrorist attack. In this racket a bidder namely Naeem Sheikh is involved and he has previously been involved in delivery of goods with misdeclaraton.
FIR is being considered to be lodged against the Customs officials, PICT, auctioneer Victor, and bidder Naeem Shaikh.
An official said Director General Transit Trade Ahmed Raza was succumbing to the pressure exerted by the lobby comprising of traders/smugglers backed by some parliamentarians. These so called traders have been demanding leniency. Ahmed Raza is likely to be transferred and some other officer with experience in transit trade would be made DG.