LAHORE: Chief Collector of Customs Central Region Samaira Nazir has said that in order to achieve financial year 2016-17 targets work has been started proactively besides periodical meetings are being held with collectors of all the four collectorates that come under the jurisdiction of Central Region.
The chief collector Central Region was interacting with Customs Today at her office at the Customs House here the other day.
She said that the region has focused on collection revenues from the very beginning of the financial year and all the collectorates under the region have done their best to collect as much revenue as they can do to meet the financial year’s targets.
As soon as the new financial year commenced all the collectorates were tasked to put maximum efforts for the collection of revenue without wasting even a single day, she said. Samaira Nazir believed that team work is a key to success and can make a visible difference.
“Because of the integrated team efforts the region was able to perform outstandingly. All the offices were told that every single day is imperative for the collection of the revenue and they worked hard to bring forth good results”.
Customs Central Region under the supervision of Chief Collector of Customs Samaira Nazir has collected Rs 27.22 billion including all duty and taxes during the first quarter (July-September) of finical year 2016-17. Customs Appraisement collected Rs 13988 million during first three months of the financial year 2016-17 while collectorte of Preventive contributed Rs 2687 million during the period. Correspondingly, the collectorate of Customs Multan collected Rs 4764 million during the first quarter and the collectorate of Faisalabad gathered Rs 2179 million during the first quarter of financial year 2016-17 against Rs 1084 million during the same period during first quarter financial year 2015-16.
She underscored now that revenue collection targets for the financial years have been assigned to all the customs collectorates, Central Region has also proactively started working on it, she said, adding that in this connection periodical meetings will be held and the revenue collection of all the collectorates will be monitored minutely.
“I have been very lucky to have a very competent team of collectors of all the four collectorate. It was due to their competence and honesty of the purpose that the Central Region not only met the targets for the outgoing finical year but also exceeded,” Samaira stated, hoping that her team will work vigorously with the same spirit for achieving targets for the current financial year as well.
To a query, Samaira said that importers and exporters are the major stakeholders in the whole structure of the customs and the Central Region goes to every extent to facilitate them in all possible ways instead they are also being taken on board in major decisions to resolve their issues.
In answer to a question, she replied that smuggling is cancerous for the growth and development of genuine businesses and in this regard Central Region has adopted zero tolerance policy besides taking a number of preventive measures.
“Modern vigilance systems have also been adopted to effectively combat with the elements involved in the illegal business activities besides customs filed forces are also being trained on modern-lines”. In these training programs, the field forces are being trained on weapon handling, firing and catching the criminals avoiding counter attacks from them, she concluded as saying.
