ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly Standing Committee on Commerce on Wednesday directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to ensure presence of officials of the Pakistan Customs to brief the committee about import and export of goods from different ports of the country since 2013.
In this regard, the committee also asked the FBR to furnish the house with an analytical report about damages and losses to the national economy due to blocked release of the said shipments for last three years.
The NA Committee met here with Siraj Muhammad Khan in the chair who expressed displeasure over the absence of officials of Pakistan Customs stationed at Karachi and other ports. Therefore, he issued instructions to the FBR officials present in the meeting to ensure the presence of Pakistan Customs officials in the next meeting along with entire required data and details of total volume as well as cost of shipments lying at the ports.
In this regard when contacted a well placed officials source at FBR explained the procedure to Customs Today and said that FBR off and on declared the customs ports comprising of sea, land and air ports for the purposes of clearance of goods.
“The customs clearance process starts with the arrival of cargo ship, plane or other carrier of goods in the country on the designated sea, land and air ports. Upon arrival of the goods at the customs port, the port authorities issue the Import General Manifest (IGM) to each shipment” the source said. It is a number indicating the serial of the shipment arrived during the year.
Upon receipt of the IGM the consignment is further indexed to allow for a systematic reference of all goods received and after issuing this number, the shipment is off loaded and sent back to port warehouse” the source added.
However, the source said that in the case of land customs station dry port etc. the IGM was issued not at the time the goods reach the land customs station but at the time the goods are off loaded at the sea or airport.
Therefore, the source said that upon arrival of the off loaded goods, the clearance process starts. Normally at this point a clearing agency is engaged by the importer to facilitate the process of customs clearance and to
