June 29, 2008	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Sani 24, 1429

KARACHI, June 28: The customs duty collection increased by nine per cent to Rs100 billion during the first 11 months (July-May) of current fiscal year against Rs91 billion collected last year.

However, when customs duty collection is compared with 25 per cent growth in imports it turns out to be a negative increase in collection.

According to official figures against a target of Rs113 billion fixed for current fiscal year for customs duty by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Rs100 billion were netted by all the four customs collectorates, Karachi Appraisement, Port Qasim Appraisement, Karachi Preventive and Model Customs Collectorate (MCC).

It is interesting to note that the MCC, which was originally given a target of Rs30 billion, achieved it in the first eight months, on which the FBR first revised the target to Rs40 billion and then to Rs41.5 billion.

The MCC collected Rs35 billion during July-May) of ‘08 or 84 per cent of total target of Rs41.5 billion and 40 per cent more than the previous year’s collection of Rs25 billion.

Similarly, the Karachi Preventive collected Rs10.5 billion or 90 per cent of target of Rs11.6 billion and stood 11 per cent higher in collection over the last year when collections stood at Rs9.3 billion.

The Port Qasim Appraisement netted Rs26 billion during the period under review and achieved 84 per cent of the target of Rs30.8 billion or 3 per cent higher than last year when collections stood at Rs25 billion.

The Karachi Appraisement collected Rs30 billion in duty or 98 per cent of target of Rs29.5 billion but remained short by 8 per cent over the last year collection of Rs31.5 billion.

The shortfall in revenue collection is being alleged to be owing to tampering with computer systems. Secondly, the ‘One Customs’ system brought to an end the physical examination of import goods by respective customs officials and placed it at random checking through computers. This was another factor for drop in revenue.

Large scale mis-declaration of imported goods is going on by re-routing of Goods Declaration (GDs) through computer operators to the ‘favourite’ customs officials, who allegedly put the items to lower tariff areas allowed under Pakistan Customs Tariff (PCT), insiders in customs told Dawn.

Undoubtedly, automation has facilitated trade by ensuring quick clearance of import goods but the FBR should consider how to plug the leakages being made under the computer system, Arshad Jamal, a leading customs agent told Dawn.

He said in many developed countries including Japan and USA physical examination of import goods was still in vogue, therefore, the FBR should develop at least a system, which should work as check and balance to plug revenue leakages.