ISLAMABAD: Targeted operations will be put into action to keep the national economy safe from the smuggling of Afghan Transit Trade’s (ATT) goods into Pakistan through western border and to weed out the operational camps of smugglers in country.
The cooperation of other law enforcement agencies will also be taken making the efforts against smuggling more strengthen. To capture the giant of smuggling at western border, more efforts are also required. Peshawar Customs Additional Collector Syed Fazl-e-Samad revealed this during an interview with Customs Today.
“We (customs) want to establish strong coordination with Frontier Constabulary (FC), political agents to realise the plan of smuggling-free Pakistan,” the additional collector said, adding that law enforcement departments have sufficient force, which will help in plugging the loopholes.
“We are trying to highlight the items, which smuggle mostly into Pakistan,” he said, adding that currently the smuggling of cloth, tea and vehicles was high in guise of Afghan Transit Trade. After highlighting the sectors, a targeted operation will be started to curb smuggling, Fazal said, hoping that import of these items will increase with tightening noose around smugglers.
He also shared that Peshawar Customs confiscated smuggled cloth, electronics, tea and other items worth Rs 947 million during first nine months of current fiscal year, besides seizing a huge cache of narcotics. In a special drive on the instructions of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), the customs seized items worth Rs 367 million involving non-duty paid vehicles worth Rs 59.35 million during last two months (February-March), he informed.
The facility of Web Based One Customs (WeBOC), automated system, has been introduced at Torkham to facilitate the traders, he said, adding that some issues of infrastructure i.e. parking for vehicles and poor roads were prevailing. A project with the cooperation of Asian Development Bank (ADB) was going to start to improve infrastructure under which terminals will be built in Gwadar, Chamman and Torkham, he said, adding that the National Logistic Cell (NLC) will start working on the project at the end of this year and complete it in two years.
He informed that the customs was facing problems regarding the Afghan Transit Trade’s tracking system, adding that transit trade director general has been informed about the problems. Tracking system was going good but there was lack of resources as around ten thousand alerts were received in a single day, he said. The anti-smuggling teams have to face problems when they were in opposite directions of the alert issued about any vehicle.
The number of outgoing containers to Afghanistan was high but resources were low to handle them, he said. “Our ground force, which consisting of inspectors and sepoys, is not strengthened enough due to not inducting new staff as many officials have retired,” the additional commissioner added.
He said that new induction was underway that will revive the performance of the collectorates all over the country. The operations of customs were limited to three stations in Federal Administrative Tribal Areas (Fata), so the customs officials were trying to work with the coordination of FC and political administration, Fazal concluded.
