KARACHI: A two-member committee has been constituted to investigate unlawful clearance of vehicles under amnesty scheme during the period from Nov 2012 to June 2013. The committee will also grill the customs officials, who were deployed in Car Group at that time.
One of the committee members, Additional Collector (ADC) Irfan Javed informed Customs Today that he is going to summon six customs officials of the Car Group in the current month for recording their statements in order to investigate the scam linked with the clearance of vehicles under the amnesty scheme.
Irfan Javed said that the committee would summon six customs’ officials including appraisers and principal appraisers in the first phase, who were deployed at the Car Group at that period of time.
Responding to a query, the additional collector said that the committee will investigate all angles of the matter to determine the real culprits.
Elaborating the details of the investigation, the additional collector informed this scribe that the committee first asked the Additional Collector (ADC) Dr Iftikhar Ahmed to appoint a departmental representative (DR) into the case, who forwarded all the relevant details to the committee at the time of need.
“The departmental representative conveyed all related details to the committee and in the light of the provided information, the committee decided to involve customs officials into the investigation of the case,” he added.
It is pertinent to mention here that the MCC-Appraisement-West has issued 37 show-cause notices to the clearing agents in this regard, while the MCC-Preventive has issued 12 show-cause notices to the shipping agents in order to determined the role of shipping agents in the clearance of vehicles.
It may be mentioned here that the Federal Tax Ombudsman in a report over the said issue asked the customs authorities to determine the role of clearing agents and shipping agents in the scam.
Sources informed Customs Today that the authorities concerned of the Pakistan Customs after fully determining the role of clearing agents and shipping agents have moved their findings to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).
Afterwards, the FBR decided to conduct an impartial inquiry into the scam with the help of honest and hardworking customs officers, and then constituted a two-member committee consisting of Additional Collector (ADC) Irfan Javed and Additional Collector (ADC) Saeed Akram to investigate the matter thoroughly.
Nowadays, the committee is working to determine the main accused.
Sources revealed that the committee will send its findings to the FBR Headquarters, Islamabad, in the current month.
