Customs North collects Rs 13.16 billion against Rs 9.08 billion target, surpasses target by Rs 4 billion
ISLAMABAD: The significant achievements marked by the Customs North Region in the wake of revenue collection are made possible by the teamwork of officials who are being appointed on merit in potential areas to achieve the growth target.
Customs North Chief Collector Sarwat Tahira Habib stated in an interview with Customs Today. She added that the Model Customs Collectorates of Islamabad, Peshawar, Sambrial and Gilgit-Baltistan, which come in the jurisdiction of the region, showed commendable performance during the second quarter (October-December) of the fiscal year 2015-16.
She said the North Region has surpassed the revenue target by 50 percent, while under the head of customs duty; it has exceeded the target by 84 percent during the said period.
“When I took the charge as the chief collector here at the Customs North, all the four collectorates were working on Web Based One Customs (WeBOC) and I made strategies to streamline them so all matters of the field offices could be monitored at the same time,” she said.
Tahira said that automation has been used to improve the performance of the principal appraisers and appraisers. There are 7500 posts in the region out of which dozens of posts were vacant, adding that the staff strength has been balanced in all offices concerned to tackle the causes of poor performance.
The chief collector said that all employees have been warned of action if anyone found involved in corruption, as such menace was not acceptable at all. She added that stern action have been taken against black sheep those received kickbacks or found involved in misuse of powers.
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had assigned a target of Rs 9.089 billion under the head of all taxes for second quarter, while the North region collected Rs 13.16 billion, achieving 50 percent more revenue than the target. The target for customs duty was Rs 2.719 billion but it successfully collected Rs 5.014 billion and achieved 84 percent more revenue than the target.
She said that Islamabad Customs has surpassed its customs duty collection target by 163 percent, as it collected Rs 2.745 billion against the target of Rs 1.044 billion. Under the head of sales tax, it collected Rs 3.948 billion against the target of Rs 1.764 billion and surpassed the target by 123.79 percent. She said that recovery in wake of custom duty and sales tax to the tune of Rs 4 billion was also included in the collection.
The Peshawar Customs collected Rs 2.159 billion in wake of customs duty against the target of Rs 1.744 billion and exceeded the target by 24 percent.
The Sambrial Customs was assigned target to the tune of Rs 3.16.32 million under the head of customs duty, but the department issued rebate claims involving Rs 223.87 million during the said period.
The Gilgit-Baltistan Customs has surpassed its customs duty target by 35 percent, as it has collected Rs 333.24 million against the target of Rs 247.1 million.
The chief collector said that all the four collectorates has been directed to keep the performance up, adding that reforms will be brought into the region overtime.
