LAHORE: Pakistan FMCG Importers Association has urged the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to take action against the facilitators of smugglers who are not only hurting legal importers, local industry but also depriving the national exchequer from duties and taxes.
In a statement, Pakistan FMCG Importers Association’s chairman and former Karachi Chamber president Anjum Nisar and Secretary General Ali Mattoo claimed that if the government really intends to curb smuggling, then it should tighten the noose around their facilitators. These facilitators are selling these illegally imported goods to consumers in the markets denying them their rights to access of quality and duty paid goods. Pakistan is losing billions of rupees worth of revenue a year, due to smuggling. The revenue lost in the form of duties and taxes on smuggled goods could be far higher if some proper study is carried out.
Anjum Nisar and Ali Mattoo urged the government to check the facilitators working in big cities of the country such as Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Multan, Faisalabad, Hyderabad and Peshawar. They suggested that the government should enact a stringent law against such people and reserve exemplary punishment for them.
