KARACHI, Dec 30: The cumbersome official procedure has not only caused delay in the launch of the urban transport scheme but has also become an eyesore for the investors who plan to import more buses.

The Karachi Green Bus Company is the first of the fourteen qualified operators of the urban transport scheme to bring in their required fleet of at least twenty-five buses for the scheme, but their buses could not rolled out of the Karachi port more than ten days after their arrival from China due to indifferent attitude of various offices.

Asadullah, a director of the GBC, expressed disappointment over the procedure of tax payment and maintained that the payment of advance income tax was a strange practice, as the technology which they were bringing in would only start paying back after about three years.

Narrating his experiences in getting clearance for the release of 24-CNG buses from the Karachi port, he said that when the customs authorities were approached with a bank guarantee for sales tax, they refused to accept the bank guarantee from any Pakistani bank and gave him a list of foreign banks eligible to issue the guarantee.

He said that the company had been paying more than Rs72,000 daily as land rent for the 24 buses stranded at the port since Dec 19, while none of the officials provided them correct information.

Nearly all transporters of the country have opposed the sales tax on the plea that they did not charge it from commuters.

Mr Asadullah said that the city and the Sindh governments had given some tax exemptions to the participants of the UTS that were required for registration of new vehicles, but it took several days to convince the customs officials to accept and acknowledge the letters from the transport departments.

Similar problems were being faced by the Swede-bus company who have shifted 32 buses to a customs warehouse since charges there were lower as compared to those at the port.

Both the companies have imported their buses under the national transport policy that makes it mandatory for the importer to establish an assembly plant or a manufacturing unit within one year of the import, to encourage local production and invite transfer of technology.

The Swede-bus company has to establish a plant with the help of Scania Bus Company and the Green Bus company with the First Automobile Workshop of China.—PPI