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All Pakistan Customs Agents Association (APCAA) has said that enormous number of containers is likely to be stuck at ports during holy month of Ramazan, if delays issues remain unresolved. In a letter sent to both chief collectors South- Appraisement and Enforcement, the association said that the volume of import and export was increasing gradually and all three port terminals were currently handling 200,000 TUs approximately per month.
However, shipping agents and terminals are unable to provide services to not more than 15,000 TUs approx per month from 200,000 TUs, despite charging heavily from the trade, which is not only paying extraordinary charges but also bearing cost of delays being done by customs, any other agency or terminals.
The customs is presently releasing over 50 percent goods through green channel while 40 percent goods are clear through yellow channel and rest of the 10 percent goods are moving from red channel to Afghan transit and dry ports. It said APCAA further stated that there was no SOP regarding controlling and monitoring of system for the examination process. "At the movement there is a huge backlog of 1,500 approx FCL on each terminals, which is piling up on daily basis particularly the position at KICT is worst ever where containers are waiting at least 3 to 4 days for grounding. Presently, no terminal has taken special arrangements in the advent of holy month of Ramazan, which may not only halt containers' clearance but also create congestion at the port.
It said that customs authorities, Ministry of Ports & Shipping and other concerned Collectorates had not even bothered to take positive measures to facilitate the trade, which continuously suffering from colossal financial loss besides Customs Agents were also facing hardships to provide maximum facilitation to the trade.
The letter further said APCAA carried out extensive research on the process of examination and discussed it with all concerned Collectorates but no heed had so far been paid. Now, APCAA is submitting the agenda points to them for the betterment of system and hoped that both chief collectors would not only take immediate action but also call a joint meeting with all stakeholders to resolve the said issues.
The issues highlighted in the letters are:
-- Over marking of consignments for examination by Customs assessing officers.
-- Delays in containers' grounding by terminal operators for examination.
-- Delays in examination and its reports feeding in the system by customs staff.
-- No commodity vise containers' stacking with special code for terminals.
-- No mechanism for releasing goods through scanner sans its grounding particularly for single items.
-- Absence of skilled workers who can submit reports online from the examination area with no delay.
-- No percentage of the consignments is defined for examination by the Assistant/Deputy Collectors.
-- Customs department appears feckless drafting any SOP for grounding, de-stuffing and lifting up of containers from examination area.
-- Terminals and shipping agents have no restriction imposed by the customs department for not charging port demurrage / container rent from the traders for delayed period.
-- There is no allocation of specific examination area for each terminal with skilled labour, machinery, surveyor and other relevant arrangements.
-- Customs department has not taken any measure to restrict terminals for repacking of goods particularly for export consignments as per international standards.
-- No procedure has so far been evolved by the customs department for not only monitoring the whole process of examination on monthly basis but also fixing the liabilities, responsibilities of terminals for examination and waivers of delayed period, etc.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2016

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