MULTAN, Jan 9: Authorities of the customs department have reportedly suspended three appraisers posted at the Karachi port for clearing a consignment of some farm chemicals allegedly against fake documents.

The suspended officials have been identified as principal appraiser Ibraheem, appraiser Tahir Mahasir and appraiser Fordil Khan. Sources in the department said that an inquiry had also been ordered against the suspended officials for clearing a consignment of farm chemicals that had not been given an NoC by the Plant Protection Department (PPD).

According to information gathered by this correspondent, a Lahore-based importer placed an order of 16,000 liters of active ingredient of Triazophos, a chemical meant for American Bollworm of cotton crop, to a Chinese manufacturer on Nov 4 last under the bill of lading WHLP0051. The consignment reached the Karachi port on Nov 28 through Wanhai Shipping Company of Shinghai, China.

As per the procedure, a PPD NoC is must for the custom clearance of the chemicals imported in the country for farm use. The PPD people took samples from the consignment and reportedly found that it did not contain the active ingredient of Triazophos.

At this, the PPD issued a show-cause notice to the importer for wrong declaration on Dec 20 last. However, the consignment was allowed to leave the Karachi port on Dec 24 without the PPD permission. Somehow, the matter came to the knowledge of the member customs, Ramzan Bhatti, who looked into the matter and found the three appraisers at fault as they could not prove that they had a valid PPD NoC to clear the consignment.

The PPD authorities reportedly took the stand before the member customs that how could they issue the NoC when the importer had yet to answer the show-cause notice on wrong declaration. However, in an interesting move, the PPD 'resampled' the consignment on Jan 1 at the customs warehouse, although the consignment had been cleared a week ago.

A source in the PPD said that in the first instance there was no need of resampling as the importer did not apply for this and moreover he 'managed' to get cleared the consignment without the PPD NoC. He feared that the department might declare the consignment fit in the resampling due to some what he termed 'ministerial' pressure.

He also expressed astonishment that though the custom officials had been suspended for wrongfully clearing the consignment, no action had so far been taken against the importer. He said there were chances that the importer might have imported a more costly chemical as compared to low-cost Triazophos as there was no need to import chemicals for cotton in the wheat season.