ISLAMABAD: Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) President Shiekh Amir Waheed has said that Dost and Co are the real enemy of the country because they are involved in causing huge loss in shape of revenue to national exchequer. He demanded serious action against such black sheep in the customs department.
While talking to Customs Today, ICCI President Amir said that country markets i.e. Rawalpindi markets are full of contraband goods, which reflects that these items/goods are cleared on port by getting bribe. Amir asked how these illegal goods/items reached the markets? He demanded that customs department and FBR should take action against such criminal elements, as clearance of such contrabands goods is crime otherwise, the country will face truncated revenue collection.
The ICCI president further said that everyone knows that Principle Appraiser Dost cannot take such step alone, they have a team; however, the high authorities have to monitor the system and if a staff found involved in such activity, there must be a punishment. “If they are not taking action it shows that they are part of such crime.”
Amir also added that FBR established One Link system to avoid such fraud, which is appreciated by importers; however, systematic approach in form of Green, Yellow and TP smuggling are used by such Principle Appraiser Dost Mohammad to blackmail the importers and get the bribe on the name of “speed money”.
“This discourage small scale importers while on the other hand also make importers life as miserable.
ICCI President Amir further said, “Our country faces leakage in the revenue collection, but black sheep in the customs department are collecting parallel revenue by such bribe and clearance of contraband goods and unfortunately this parallel revenue are more higher that our revenue collected by the department.”
Amir also suggested that the government should reduce the tax to avoid smuggling of goods and leakage of revenue. He added that lowering the taxes will contributing high the revenue and also will help discourage the smuggling.
