Goods from UAE to be physically examined

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Parvaiz Ishfaq Rana
KARACHI, Dec 8: The customs authorities have put all consignments originating from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) under strict physical examination to check rampant mis-declaration and under-invoicing.

The UAE is the trade hub used by Pakistani and business communities of other countries for trans-shipment purposes. The Dubai port is widely used as a ‘third country’ for a contravention objective, and strict physical examination is being made after detection of large-scale misdeclaration and contravention cases on consignments originating from the UAE.

Many banned items and those under negative list were earlier finding their way to the local market which was resulting in huge revenue losses and also causing injury to domestic industry.

The customs authorities detected around 145 mis-declaration and contravention cases during August-September 2008 and 174 cases in October and November, showing an increase of 20 per cent of misdeclared cases at the three container terminals of the country.

Now officials at additional and deputy collectors (examination) level would personally supervise examination of all Goods Declarations (GDs) originating from UAE to verify the description, quantity and all other aspects without any exception.

The order, issued by the collector Model Customs Collectorate Khawaja Tanveer Ahmed, further empowered customs officials to chase all suspected imported consignments originating from UAE but selected for clearance through ‘green channel’ by the auto or computerised system of the customs.

The lower staff of examination section of customs on getting approval from additional or deputy collectors (examination or assessment) would examine all such suspected imported consignments to verify the actual description, quantity and all other aspects of such imports, official sources said.

Chief Collector (South) Munir Qureshi has chalked out a strategy with the help of his officers, the collector MCC Khawaja Tanveer Ahmed, Additional Collector Wasif Memon and Deputy Collector Omer Shafiq, to check contravention and mis-declaration cases.

In order to remove loopholes, a system on the basis of First In First Out (FIFO) has been introduced for examination of imported goods. In the past, it used to go directly to examination officers, sources said.

Similarly, stringent steps have been taken to check re-routing, re-examination and re-assessment of imported goods which were widely used to oblige selected cases, they added.

A system has been developed wherein an importer can track his Goods Declaration (GDs) online and know its position.

Customs sources told Dawn that a proposal had been submitted to the Federal Board of Revenue to make clearance of consignments of commercial importers and exporters through clearing agents mandatory.

The customs authorities have also cancelled a large number of fake user IDs and now made physical presence of a person for getting new IDs mandatory.

http://www.dawn.com/2008/12/09/ebr4.htm