KARACHI: Pakistan Customs has devised a two-pronged strategy to generate additional revenue: hold auctions at regular intervals and pursue court cases for revenue recovery. The strategy is aimed at achieving the revenue target set by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for fiscal year 2013-14.
Collector Model Customs Collectorate (MCC) West Muhammad Saleem said this during an exclusive interview with Customs Today at his office in Customs House, Karachi.
Sharing the various methods for revenue generation, Collector Muhammad Saleem said that the customs department was going to streamline things after the division of PaCCs Collectorate into MCC-East and MCC-West on territorial basis.
“We are going to expedite the revenue generation process by conducting two auctions in a month, adding that the said process will continue throughout the year”, he asserted.
Responding to a query, Muhammad Saleem said that Pakistan Customs had to achieve the revenue target with an increase of 27 per cent as compared to the previous fiscal year and the officials at all levels were trying hard to achieve the revenue target set by FBR for this fiscal year.
The MCC-West Collector stated that Pakistan Customs was contributing a major share to the total revenue of the country, and its officials were determined to facilitate importers, exporters and clearing agents.
Answering another question, Saleem explained that at least six months were required to determine the means to generate revenue and go into the reasons for increase and shortfall in revenue recovery.
“The officials are working hard to achieve the designated targets on quarterly basis as well as yearly basis”, he added.
He maintained, “The officials of Pakistan Customs have clear directives from their high-ups including FBR Chairman Tariq Bajwa, Member Customs Nisar Muhammad Khan and Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar to improve the performance and keep a vigilant eye on tax evasion, under-invoicing and decide issues on merit.”
Collector MCC-West Muhammad Saleem said that it had been decided in discussions with the delegation of Karachi Customs Agents Association that the show-cause notices issued against them in Afghan Transit Trade (ATT) scam would be decided on merit after hearing the views of each and every Customs agent.
“We are not going to re-open the cases against the Order-in-Original issued to the Customs agents, but will give them an opportunity to file an appeal against the issuance of show-cause notices”, Collector MCC-West declared.
