Customs refuses to clear wheat consignments

The Customs authorities have stopped entering wheat consignments for export at two big ports of the country despite the approval of concerned ministry for further 0.5 million tonnes export, it is learnt.
Sources said that the customs authorities had refused to clear wheat consignments, which were brought to Karachi Port and Port Qasim by exporters.
"The authorities have not even allowed us to enter our consignments in to the ports' proximity and we have once again stuck-up between the Ministry of Food Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) and Customs row," said a leading exporter.
On last Thursday federal government had allowed private exporters to export additional half million tonnes wheat from open market and exporters had started to file their export documents, which were not accepted by the Custom officials, he added.
He said that exporters had around more than one million tonnes wheat export orders but due to the customs hurdles they were not able to fulfil their export orders and in the case of delay they would face huge losses in the term of late delivery surcharge.
He informed that customs official had clear cut told exporters they would not allow a single wheat export consignment till the officially issuance of notification by the Ministry of Commerce or Minfal.
This was a very important phase of wheat export, as the exporters had huge export orders and on the other hand some government departments were creating problems for exporters, he added. The wheat exporters were very happy by government new export allocation to the private sector but now they were in a trouble, he elaborated.
He said that wheat export consignments were packed and ready for shipment awaiting the green signal by the custom authorities.
He said that the matter of wheat export was causing hardships for exporters, who have already faced some losses, as last week wheat export was stopped by customs.
Exporters have demand that Central Board of Revenue (CBR) should order to the customs official for accepting wheat export documents. They have also appealed to the government to ensure immediate delivery of the notification to the collector customs.