KARACHI, Jan 19: Revenue collection at customs stage recorded a decline of 6.19 per cent to Rs63.890 billion during first six months of current fiscal compared to Rs68.111 billion collected in the corresponding period last year.

A major factor for fall in revenue is the higher volume of cargo clearance through Model Customs Collectorate (MCC) under which Customs Administrative Reform (CARe) project is operating to facilitate self clearance of imported consignments.

Despite the fact that the revenue collection through CARe has shown marginal growth during the period under review but it did not rise in corollary with the rising volume of cargo, particularly after including the container cargoes coming through Qasim International Container Terminal (QICT), and Pakistan International Container Terminal (PICT).

When CARe was launched about 18 months back it was supposed to clear all imports including containers coming through Karachi International Container Terminal (KICT), but gradually cargo coming through PICT and QICT were also put under CARe clearance.

According to some rough estimates presently 60 per cent of cargo coming through Karachi Port and around 70 per cent through Port Qasim is cleared by CARe. Consequently, lesser cargo is presently being cleared by the Collectorate of Appraisement, thereby resulting in fall of revenue.

With the rising trend of containerisation both the Karachi Port and Qasim port are receiving more boxes than ever before and they are off loaded at their respective container terminals. This means that higher volume of imported cargo is being cleared by CARe working under MCC.

However, the founder member of Karachi Customs Agents Association (KCAA) Arshad Jamal said that after the launching of CARe under which auto- clearance of imported goods is made through computer there is an unprecedented revenue leakage as the entire system is tampered with the help of system operators.

Citing an example, he said that for the last 18 months items such as cloth, auto parts and tyres were being cleared on declared value (DV) which results in revenue loss of billions of rupees as most of these goods are under invoiced. He further alleged that SRO 693 governing imports of auto-parts is not being applied.It is also being alleged that system operators have also adopted other methods to clear the goods without being proper scrutinized by the computers. At a certain timeframe computers have to shed their load and this is only known to system operators, who share this information with the selected people who manage to clear their consignments on auto basis.

Another method of evading tax and customs duty is being generally talked about is ‘rerouting’ under which system operators select a customs officer of their choice and put the consignment for clearance on his computer terminal. All these facts could be checked if the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) carry out audit and ask customs intelligence to trace out malpractices causing huge revenue loss to the national exchequer.

Undoubtedly, CARe facilitates quick and fast clearance of goods but there should be some method to check such revenue leakages, which will increase in due course as more and more imported consignments would come under the system for clearance, Arshad Jamal asserted.