PESHAWAR, Oct 16: The Bara Importers Association has accused the customs department of withholding consignments of crockery and cloth imported from different countries without any justification.

Speaking at a press conference at Peshawar Press Club here on Wednesday, a spokesman for the association, Hakeem Shinwari said that the customs department had withheld the consignment of imported items of crockery and cloth without any government notification. They attributed this to what they said, re-examination.

There was no instruction from the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) nor from any other government authorities to withhold these consignment of its re-examination, he said.

“Actually, the problem has been created by the customs intelligence department, which asked the customs authorities at Peshawar dry port to withhold the imported items for its re- examination,” he alleged.

The customs intelligence, Mr Hakeem said, were doing all this on the behest of local manufacturers of crockery and cloth which were unable to produce quality products on competitive prices.

The customs authorities at Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar dry ports were also putting hurdles in the import of cosmetics items, Mr Shinwari said.

Recently, he added, the government issued a Statutory Regularity Order asking all the cosmetic importers to get the retail prices printed on each item.

“This is certainly impossible for the importers to force the foreign manufacturers to do it as they export cosmetics to many countries without mentioning the retail price on them,” he complained.

The tribal areas’ traders had promised about three-and-half years ago with the government, when Mr Moeen Haider was interior minister, that they would stop importing foreign goods through Afghan Transit Trade Agreement (ATTA) and switch over to legal import, Mr Shinwari said.

Despite contributing to the national exchequer in billions of rupees as import duty and other taxes during that period, the government had started putting hurdles in the legal import, forcing the Bara traders to again start importing goods through ATTA, he warned.