LAHORE: The government should refund demurrage & detention charges to Pakistani importers which they paid to get their goods and articles released amid the worst ever period of COVID-19 pandemic.
This was stated by Nasir Hameed Khan LCCI ex-Vice President while talking to Customs Today in an exclusive talk with the newspaper’s special correspondent. He said that importers across the country have moved from pillar to post to get waivers of demurrage and detention as their businesses hit a bump in the road due to Covid-19 crisis but none of the government functionaries listened to them resultantly the importers have to pay huge demurrage and detention charges despite the fact that they have been facing financial crunch due the pandemic.
“The importers were facing financial crunches due the Covid-19 pandemic as every type of the business was shut. Payments were stuck and what we had with us was our stocks, banks were reluctant to extend loans to the businessmen. This was the worst ever time which we have never seen before,” LCCI told this scribe, adding that businessmen across the country made numerous fervent appeals to the government and its functionaries including Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) but none took the situation seriously and the importers had to paid fines demurrage and detention charges to release their consignments.
Khan said that the government should prioritize Pakistani businessmen. If they are giving free time to Afghanistan importers’ free time facility during the Covid-19 period from March to July Pakistani importers should also be given relief.
“Most of the Pakistani importers have to pay huge demurrage and detention charges besides fine to get their goods released which is an injustice,” he said.
He said that this is very discriminatory and illogical that Pakistani importers have been extended no relief while the government is considering waiver for the Afghan importers during the peak Covid-19 period in Pakistan.
