ISLAMABAD, Feb 5: The Central Board of Revenue has refused to allow overseas Pakistanis to bring in the country seven duty-free items, including air conditioners and deep freezers under the gift allowance scheme.
Sources told Dawn on Tuesday that the Overseas Pakistanis Foundation (OPF) had asked the finance ministry to direct CBR officials to adhere to an earlier decision of allowing overseas Pakistanis to bring seven items by using their Silver and Gold Cards while returning.
The items are: air conditioner, cooking range, deep freezer, gas appliances, microwave oven, refrigerator, sewing machine, television, video cassette player, audio cassette recorder and washing machine.
The returning overseas Pakistanis have to pay normal customs duty on the items, which is causing unrest among them.
The OPF has told the ministry officials that in the absence of the benefit, the Gold and Silver Cards did not have enough value to attract the overseas Pakistanis.
The foundation has repeatedly requested the CBR to review its decision but the officials of the board maintain that they could not allow the import of the items as the local industry has to be encouraged.
They said the card holders were entitled to purchase the items, which are locally manufactured, from the duty-free shops on which sales tax is also waived.
Sources said the OPF had spent over Rs3 million in marketing the scheme by issuing 11,564 cards — 4,479 Gold Cards and 7,085 Silver Cards — by Jan 24.
Sources said the overseas Pakistanis were not appreciative of the policy since they preferred bringing in imported items as personal baggage.
They had also sought reservation of seats for their children in the professional colleges, the sources said and added that the OPF had requested the economic affairs division to allocate 40 seats for them.
The overseas Pakistanis, sources said, had also asked for early completion of OPF housing scheme here, which was initiated in 1994. The scheme had been facing problems in procurement of land because of court cases and difficulty in getting it through the Capital Development Authority (CDA).
Sources said the CDA recently gave no-objection certificate to the OPF to go ahead with the scheme, the process of selecting a contractor had been completed and the letter of intent for civil work issued to the lowest bidder.
An OPF official said personalized services like the reparation of overseas Pakistanis, transportation of bodies, free ambulance service, individual complaint cell and handling of dues and death compensation cases with the employers abroad were being provided.