Says Anti-smuggling performance also hundred percent improved in some Collectorates, posts a positive growth of 35 pc by collecting Rs1499m during November FY 2017-18.
LAHORE: The Customs Central Region has successfully posted a growth of 42 percent in collection of customs duty from July to November during the financial year 2017-18 as compared to the same period last year. The region collected additional customs duty of Rs 6,661 million during the period under review.
On the other hand, the region also posted a positive growth of 35 percent by collecting Rs 1,499 million during the month of November during the current financial year.
Anti-smuggling performance has also improved 100 percent in some Collectorates while in others it is over 50 percent.
These views were expressed by the Chief Collector of Customs Zeba Hai Azhar while giving an exclusive interview to Customs Today here the other day. Zeba is known as outstanding, upright and competent officer of the Pakistan Customs Service.
All the four collectors of Customs Central Region are experienced and seasoned staff running their Collectoartes efficiently, ensuring sizable growth in revenue collection, trade and industry facilitation and taking intense anti-smuggling measures to bring down the menace of smuggling to the lowest-ebb, she said.
Faisalabad Collectorate has performed tremendously under the guidance of Collector of Customs Muhammad Sadiq as exports have increased to a significant level while more than 100 containers of export goods and articles are being cleared from the Faisalabad Collectorate, the Chief Collector informed.
“Earlier a number of issues were problematic there, however, since the incumbent Collector assumed his charge, many issues have been resolved and things have started improving there, she said adding that the measures taken against smuggling have proved instrumental in overcoming the smuggling evil,” Azhar said, adding that collector of Customs Sadiq undertook audits of major companies and recovered pending duty and taxes that enabled the Collectorate to show significant revenue growth. While talking about Multan Collectorate, she said that the Collectorate is also doing very well as oil based products are being frequently cleared and revenue position has improved marvelously going up while Customs Appraisement has also showed a sizeable growth in the revenue collection, she explained, adding further the Collectoartes ASO team has conducted a number of operations against the elements involved in smuggling of gutka and cigarettes.
“The Multan Collectoarte is performing wonderfully under the leadership of Collector of Customs Saud Imran who explored new avenue of revenue collection and created preclusion against smuggling,” she highlighted further.
She added that the Collectorate of Customs Preventive Lahore is also not lagging behind any other Collectorate instead it has showed a positive growth of 34 percent in revenue collection and brought down the smuggling down remarkably.
To a question about the mega seizure of Rs 300 million of Q-Mobile Warehouse in Behria Town, she said that it is very difficult to impound such godowns but the anti-smuggling team of Customs Preventive has made it possible and they should be appreciated, adding that our ASO teams kept waiting there for the owners who could produce any legal clearance documents against the mobiles and its accessories but no one came there to claim the responsibility of the godown and showed any legal documents against the millions of rupees illegally dumped mobiles and accessories. “Finally the ASO has to detain all the stock illegally stored,” she said.
In answer to question about more seizures of illegally imported Q-Mobile, she replied that these operations are information based and “we have to keep the information highly secrets”. However, if there receives any information the concerned Collectorate is fully authorities to take stern action.
She also mentioned the that the Customs Appraisement has also attained a positive growth in revenue collection as the collector Jamil Nasir has put all his efforts to attain the momentum.
