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FAISALABAD, July 5: Pakistan will acquire two latest screening machines worth $10 million to combat drug trafficking.
This was stated by Anti-Narcotics Force Director General Maj-Gen Zafar Abbas while talking to custom officials and trustees at Faisalabad Dry Port on Friday.
The ANF DG reviewed the performance and arrangements at the FDPT. He said the use of technology would eliminate the minimum risk of drug trafficking in the country. Pakistan was a transit to narcotics and we would have to fight it.
Earlier, custom collector Omar Farooq briefed the ANF DG on the steps being taken by the custom and dry port authorities for the checking of drugs. He said consignments of infrequent commercial exporters were subject to detailed scrutiny.
He said bales or cartons undergo a random selection and then could be allowed to transport after putting two unbreakable seals at every export cargo container. He said the FDPT had introduced an innovative approach for tracking the consignments en route Karachi and developed an “online system” by establishing four check posts at Maitla Chowk (Multan), Iqbalabad (Rahim Yar Khan) and Moro and Nooriabad (Sindh) which were linked with main server at the FDPT.
The centralized monitoring and limited access and check posts-specific software would provide system security, he said.
He said the main benefits of the tracking system were expeditious flow of cargo, deterrence against en route substitution or tampering and online information.
OFFICIAL RESIDENCES: Over two dozen senior officers belonging to the judiciary and the provincial civil service have been running from pillar to post for the allotment of official residences while a number of government bungalows remain occupied without authorization.
Allotment of scores of residences has been cancelled since abolition of the commissionerate, either on account of transfers or on expiry of the allotment term. The district coordination officer, however, seems unable to get the residences vacated from illegal occupants.
In one such case, Dawn learnt, an officer serving as a director in the Faisalabad Development Authority, was occupying a government residence despite having been allotted one by his new employer. He was also not paying the rent.
