PESHAWAR: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) must act to stop Maersk Shipping Line for taking extra detention and damurrage charges from importers, said by Provincial Minister Finance Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Taimur Saleem Jhagra.
He was talking with Customs Today in Peshawar and termed it a violation of shipping business rules and said that new techs needed to be utilized for satisfaction of importers during inquiry of their goods and duties applied on them. The Maersk shipping line must facilitate importers of Pakistan and avoid frustrating them by violating Customs rules by taking extra charges than fixed by Government of Pakistan.
It’s also a matter of worry that how far a multinational company violates prescribed rules of a government. The authorities concerned as will the security agencies along with Federal Finance Minister need to conduct fair accountability of Rs 600 billion loss to the exchequer.
The provincial finance minister also said that shipping lines other than Maersk line are facilitating importers but due to market monopoly Maersk line takes advantage. It’s point to be wonder of that in so many ways importers and traders have been discouraged in Pakistan by shipping lines like Maersk but government remains unaware of the situation for decades.
The Provincial Finance Minister said in leadership of Imran Khan this government will not tolerate any injustice with importers. Soon the matter will be discussed with high-ups of the government and complete justice will be done with importers.
It is pertinent to mention here that Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Corporate Crime Circle Karachi has also taken up the issue of blackmailing and cheating by the shipping line by issuing a letter No FIA/CCCK/VRF-52/2018/5486-87 in this regard.
It is pertinent to mention here that the NAB and the FIA already received a complaint seeking probe to ascertain role of employees of Maersk Line in country’s biggest shipping scandal involving 610 billion rupees.
Importers lodged application against Maersk Line and its subsidiary in Pakistan Maersk Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd for conspiracy, cheating and criminal breach of trust under PPC 407, 409, 420, 427, 506 and others so that these fraudsters are stopped to blackmail genuine importers by demanding ‘illegal’ demurrage and detention charges.
The complaint received by the NAB and the FIA demanded legal action for recoveries of amounts looted and recovering losses of Rs. 610 billion to the national exchequer per year while also stopping such further losses from the accused persons of Maersk Line and M/s Maersk Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd including Søren Skou, Claus V. Hemmingsen, Søren Toft, Vincent Clercp, Morten H. Engelstoft, others of Maersk Line and Arslan Khan, Hazanfar Khan, Raheel Salim, Maqsood Ul Hasan Khan, Fuad Khan, Hasan Faraz, Shakeel Masih, Omer Khan, Ali Jawad Alvi, Zafar Iqbal, Ayesha Chowdhry, Zahid Hussain, Salman Ahmad, Aamir Ali, Umais Aziz Khan, Mohammed Naeem, Farheen Mahmud, Mubasshar Iqbal, Affaq Syed, Syed Mohammad Abbas Jafri, Muhammad Tanveer Sharif, Salman Ateeq, Hamza Haq, Ziad Mahboob, Aamir Ibrahim, Yasir Saeed Khan, Amal Sadiq Dawood, Effat Mehmood, Maria Urooj, Zain Warsi, Mehreen Zulfiqar, Awais Saleem, Zafar Iqbal, Syed Osman Iqbal Zaidi, Anum Yaqub, Fahad Ali, Obaid Iqbal, Zahid Hussain, Muhammad Ali Qureshi, Danish Siddiqui, Amir Arif, Arshad Ayub, Syed Mudassir Ali, Syed Hammad Hussain, Ayesha Qadri, Sheikh Samiullah, others of M/S Maersk Pakistan Private Limited.
