ISLAMABAD: A business advocating organisation has estimated that the smuggling of goods under the garb of the Afghan Transit Trade is causing Rs 50 billion losses to the national exchequer annually.
It is also estimated that at least 200 to 250 trucks cross over every day from Afghanistan into Pakistan, loaded with smuggled goods.
The goods imported under the Afghan Transit Trade have become a main source of pilferage of the government taxes.
The size of informal trade between the two countries is $2.5 billion; in other words equal to the size of formal trade and it is not possible to provide any breakdown of the informal trade of $2.5 billion into smuggling of transit goods and informal bilateral trade.
FBR in SRO 413(1)/2012, dated 25-04-2012 devised a procedure to check pilferage in the transit goods en-route to Afghanistan by monitoring through Tracking System and establishment of Mobile Enforcement Units (MEUs), consisting of anti-smuggling Mobile Squads. These MEUs routinely examine transit containers on the basis of alerts issued by the tracking system installed on the containers to contain the menace of smuggling.
“The main reason in this regard is that Customs Check Posts have not been established on the link roads of the said routes” a well placed source at FBR told this scribe here on Wednesday.
However, Mobile Squads of different Collectorates have been performing ante smuggling operations from time to time on such link roads and impound smuggled goods being transported through such link routes through their information network and strategies.
The Customs Mobile Squads/MEUs patrol the designated routes on which transit and transshipment cargo plies.
The Mobile Squads may check a vehicle in case it receives authentic information or has reasons to believe that the goods have been pilfered or lost. The squad reports any eventuality to the nearest Regional Control Room (RCR). The squad makes endorsement of the action taken with regard to cargo, transport units etc, by feeding the information in the system.
Moreover, the particulars of vehicles having tracking devices carrying transit goods are electronically entered at the designated check posts and in case of any deviation from the prescribed route, the tracking company informs the concerned Customs Collectorate which sends dedicated mobile squads to check the subject vehicle.
FBR is making efforts to improve enforcement while the more sustainable solutions are a combination of quantitative limits and harmonized duty and GST rates with Pakistan Customs having the power to collect the latter on behalf of the Afghan government.
