KARACHI: The Collector Model Customs Collectorate (MCC-West) Muhammad Saleem has issued off-duty letters against two appraising officers and warning letters to 13 other officials including one principal appraiser and 12 appraising officers on the allegation of under voicing in 75 consignments of imports.
The sources informed Customs Today that the high officials in MCC-West found that the 15 Customs officials including principal appraiser and appraisers of Appraisement Hall-West were involved in under voicing on the imported consignments, causing loss of Rs15 million to the national exchequer.
Sources further informed that the MCC-West has taken the said step after falling short in getting revenue target in its first quarter (July to Sept) of the fiscal year 2013-14.
Those appraisers who got off-duty letters from the Collector MCC-West Office include Sanaullah Abbasi and Khalid Pervez while those Customs officials who got warning letters include Principal Appraiser Javed Ahsan and appraisers Mir Alam, Tasleem Khan, Azhar Shafi, Zulfiqar Shaikh, Babar Gulzar, Sher Khan, Abdul Aziz, Nawab Tauqeer, Javed Iqbal, Muzaffar Abbasi, SM Sohail and Rana Naseer.
The Collector-MCC-West has also issued directives to the 13 Customs officials who got warning letters to recover the lapse income till Oct 30, otherwise legal action would be taken against them.
One of the appraisers on condition of anonymity told Customs Today that the injustice is being conducted with the directives issued against the 15 Customs officials, as no under-voicing was being conducted in those 75 imported consignments.
He was of the view that the WeBOC System does not have the option to go after 2-decimal digits of the total amount filed in the Goods Declaration (GD).
To a query, appraiser said that the high officials of Customs MCC-West have added all those values which come after the 2-decimal digits and a due amount in that case has been generated.
