KARACHI: Responding to Karachi Chamber’s demands, Asif Marghoob Siddiqui, Director Intelligence & Investigation Customs, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) announced that Additional Director Customs Karachi, Khalil Yousfani will act as a focal person who will be responsible for resolving various issues being faced by importers and exporters in dealing with Directorate General of Intelligence & Investigation.
Talking to KCCI office-bearers and Managing Committee members during his visit to KCCI, Asif Marghoob further asked KCCI to nominate five representatives of KCCI as well in order to ensure effective coordination between the Directorate and KCCI.
President KCCI, Abdullah Zaki, Senior Vice President KCCI, Muffasar A. Malik, Vice President KCCI, Muhammad Idrees and KCCI Managing Committee members were present at the meeting.
Asif Marghoob, while assuring full support to Karachi Chamber and all its members, said that effective strategy was being devised to minimize the hardships of genuine importers/exporters, particularly those businessmen will be facilitated whose shipments were carrying KCCI letters.
He admitted that around 70 to 80 percent of the cases in the Customs were of genuine importers who will soon be provided relief. In this regard, he assured to timely resolve a number of pending cases whereas priority will be given to KCCI’s recommendations.
Abdullah Zaki, President KCCI, while welcoming Director Intelligence & Investigation Customs, informed that movement of imports and goods via transportation within the city was constantly being disturbed by Directorate, resulting in intensifying the hardships of importers who are being harassed while Goods Declaration (GD) was totally being ignored at all levels.
He demanded that this harassment must be stopped and GD should be accepted and prioritized in order to ensure smooth transportation of goods across the country.
Abdullah Zaki pointed out that one of the most important issues was that goods were being held at ports while the system was not being updated. In this regard, President KCCI suggested that importers/ consignee should be timely informed about the status of their goods while KCCI must also be immediately informed via fax in case any of the shipment has been withheld by the Directorate, which will surely help in dealing with excessive transportation, detention and demurrage charges.
He further recommended that Directorate of Intelligence & Investigation should be deployed at those places/routes from where smuggled goods were being injected into the city. He hoped that the Director Intelligence & Investigation Customs FBR would support KCCI in amicably resolving these issues.
