ISLAMABAD, Nov 15: The federal government here on Friday decided to curb smuggling by giving necessary powers to the provincial governments.
A meeting, presided over by the Minister for Finance, Shaukat Aziz, decided to hand over all powers of Central Board of Revenue (CBR) to the provincial police, levies and Frontier Constabulary (FC) to improve the legal mechanism.
It was also decided to enhance the role of the customs intelligence allowing it to work in collaboration with the provincial governments, FC, coast guards and oil marketing companies.
A task force of dedicated officers would be constituted to intercept smuggling, specifically POL products. Joint checkpoints would be established at major junctions on main routes for the purpose.
“Due to smuggling, specially of petroleum products, the government is losing huge revenues and this situation cannot be tolerated any more”, said the finance minister.
Talking to Dawn after the meeting he said that there was Rs45 billion petroleum development surcharge which needed to be achieved by discouraging smuggling.
If smuggled petroleum products from Iran were utilized in Balochistan and the NWFP, the government naturally would loose revenue.
Aziz said that oil tankers, with the connivance of provincial officers, were smuggling petroleum products into Punjab and Sindh from Balochistan. “It appears that many agencies are involved,” he said.
A retired major-general, the finance minister said, was being appointed as director-general coordination to enforce strict laws to check smuggling.
The meeting was informed that the smuggling of the POL products was causing the government exchequer a loss of up to Rs5 billion annually.
The meeting looked into the roles of the federal and provincial governments and suggestions were made how to improve the legal and operational mechanism so that different agencies could effectively tackle the problem.
The chief secretary, NWFP, told the meeting that the NWFP government had already started checking the sale of petrol and diesel in the settled areas and the results would be visible in a few weeks. The inspector-general, Frontier Constabulary, Balochistan, informed the meeting that seizer of diesel, petrol and tankers carrying smuggled goods had increased.
As compared to petrol and diesel, lube oil presented a different sort of problem as it can be smuggled in small packages. It was decided that customs intelligence, in collaboration with oil marketing companies, would pinpoint major dump areas for law enforcement agencies to take appropriate action.
The meeting agreed that DG customs intelligence would coordinate with the ministries, departments, provinces and oil marketing companies to ensure reduction in oil smuggling.
The customs intelligence of the CBR is being totally revamped and upgraded to provide quality intelligence to law enforcement agencies.
The meeting was also attended by federal ministers for interior, petroleum and natural resources and commerce as well as chief secretaries, Balochistan, NWFP, and secretaries revenue, finance, interior, commerce and petroleum ministries.