LAHORE: Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) Dr. Asif Mehmood Jah has directed Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to immediately take effective measures for installing mobile scanner at Customs Station Chaman.
Dr. Asif Mehmood Jah observed that till installation of proper scanning facility under ITTMS Program mobile scanners should be installed at Chaman Station in order to avoid the in stances of mis-declaration of cargo specially under the transit scheme.
Briefly, a new weigh bridge had been notified by the DG (Transit Trade) Karachi with directions that weighment reports from the new weigh bridge viz Halting station Chaman would be acceptable to Customs authorities in exclusion of the existing two weigh stations viz Afghanistan handling chaman.
FTO sought Secretary Revenue Division for comments and accordingly, Directorate of Transit Trade Quetta informed that NLC Terminal Operator at Chaman had been unable to provide space infrastructure, weighbridge required for processing of Afghanistan bound transit cargo due to disruption caused by the ongoing Integrated Transit Trade Management System ITTMS therefore Directorate was constrained to process such forward transit cargo under an adhoc arrangement at halting station Chaman.
In order to improve custom controls at halting station, operator, thereof was required to improve facilities at the premises including provision of a proper weighbridge.
The relevant authorities authorized installation of weighbridge to the owner of the halting station on profit sharing basis and accordingly a proper weighbridge had been installed whereon customs supervision was easily possible. Before that, weighment of transit cargo was being carried out at two privately owned wehbridges located 7-8 Km away from the halting station which made it impossible to supervise. In view of the above, no maladministration had been committed by the Transit Directorate, It was also evident that department has got weighment and examination yard established just next to the friendship gate at Chaman Boarder which was physically supervised by the customs staff.
Since there was no maladministration, therefore the investigation was disposed of with the FTO’s directions to FBR ,to make immediate efforts for installing mobile scanner temporarily at halting station Chaman till the operationalization of ITTMS at Chaman, Quetta.
