April 30, 2008	Wednesday	Rabi-us-Sani 23, 1429

KARACHI, April 29: The Customs Administrative Reforms (Care) fetched around Rs55.343 billion from auto clearance of imports in the last 19 months as against Rs94.841 billion collected by the appraisement collectorate.

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) launched the Care system at Karachi International Container Terminal (KICT) in May 2005 as a pilot project and later extended it to other terminals of the port, which covered around 70 per cent of country’s total imports. The remaining 30 per cent imports are cleared by the appraisement collectorate and Port Qasim collectorate.

In August 2006 the automated clearance system was extended to Pakistan International Container Terminal (PICT), Qasim International Container Terminal (QICT) along with the KICT.

However, official revenue figures for 19 months (August 2006 to March 2008) show that these two systems have wide and glaring difference.

The appraisement collected 41 per cent higher revenue than the Care system.

The objective of the FBR in introducing Care system was to facilitate the trade through hassle free clearance of imports and save them from heavy costs incurred on demurrage, storage and other charges to ensure their competitiveness.

But some unscrupulous elements on both sides of divide are abusing the auto system and causing massive revenue loss to the national exchequer, observed a customs clearing agent, who requested anonymity.

He alleged that the Care system operators tamper with the computer processing and re-route the Goods Declaration (GD).

Besides, instances of mis-declarations on a large scale cause billions of rupees in revenue loss.

Despite the fact that the chairman FBR had time and again admitted that there was heavy revenue loss through Care but he had been equally determined the save the system launched as a result of customs reforms.

Some of the major items, which are generally cleared under mis-declaration are tyres, chemicals, electric and electronic goods, tiles, cosmetics, auto-parts, iron and steel sheets and machinery.

However, there had been strong demand from the trade to check the malpractice in imports because they said that as a result of such leakages many domestic industries were heavily suffering as they could not compete with goods making their way into local market through mis-declarations.

Already, many industries after sustaining losses have closed down and others are fighting for their survival, said a leading industrialist Javed Bilwani.