QUETTA: The Model Customs Collectorate has been making all-out efforts to control smuggling of scrap, dry fruit, vehicles and other items from Afghanistan and Iran to help boost legal trade and enhance the country’s revenue, customs collector for Quetta said on Thursday.

Muhammad Saeed Khan Jadoon told a press conference that with strict checking the customs staff had achieved encouraging results and seized smuggled goods worth Rs131 million in Balochistan, including 62 vehicles brought in from across the border.

He said that with strict steps his staff had managed to curb the smuggling of scrap and dry fruit to a great extent as a large number of trucks carrying them had been seized.

“We want to encourage legal import and export of goods between Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan to enhance revenue for our country,” Mr Jadoon remarked.

He said that some people had been smuggling goods in the name of the Afghan transit trade. The department would not allow the misuse of the facility, he added.

Speaking on the occasion, Deputy Collector Syed Ihsanullah Shah said that in a short period of 30 days his staff had seized a huge quantity of automobile engines, tyres, clothes, bicycle parts, cigarettes, generators and other smuggled items.

He said that 50,000 litres of Iranian diesel, along with three oil tankers (24,000 litres of smuggled petrol and 2,799 litres of mobile oil) and three vehicles carrying smuggled goods were seized during different raids.

Mr Shah urged the media to cooperate with his department to “pave way for a corruption-free society”.

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2015

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