ISLAMABAD: For maximizing the revenue collection, the chief collector north’s policy is to focus on the big taxpayers by facilitating and accelerating their assessments.
This was stated by Chief Collector North Sarwat Tahira Habib while giving an exclusive interview to Customs Today at her office.
She said that to meet the upcoming revenue collections, the north region is trying to focus on serious business importers so far except border stations of the KPK.
The chief collector said the overall target of north region’s achievements is as per expectation. She added that the Model Customs Collectorate (MCC) Islamabad achieved 101 percent of Customs Duty against the assigned target whereas the MCCI got 100% All Duty Taxes against its total target of April FY16-17. The Model Customs Colletorate Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) achieved 148 percent Customs Duty (CD) and the GB collected 152 % CD against the assigned all duty taxes target up to April FY2016-17.
Tahira Habib said that due to recent enhancement of targets by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), north region is taking this target as a challenge and teams at the MCC Islamabad and Gilgit-Baltistan are expediting their efforts to do the job assigned by the department. She said she has specifically also taken measures to achieve the given target by June 2017.
Answering a query, she said to facilitate the CPEC related trade running, the north region has posted more officials and staff at the MCC GB. She stressed the need for tasking more staff with undertaking upcoming infrastructure project in Gilgit-Baltistan including the building of new Customs House in Gilgit and a trade facilitation centre at Sost. Side by side, the northern region is also working on the development of new infrastructure for simplifying the procedure and business in the border regions.
Replying to another question about the Customs Station Torkham, the chief collector north said apart from the construction of Customs House Torkham under the ITTM programme assisted by the ADB, state-of-the-art border complex is being constructed at Torkham to improve the facilities for clearance of goods laden trucks crossing border to Afghanistan and CARs. The complex covers an area of 700 kanals, she informed. The complex comprises of customs and immigration offices, two-way customs and immigration terminals, checking and scanning plazas for pedestrians and passenger and cargo vehicles with other infrastructure.
