The Directorate General, Intelligence and Investigation (DGI&I) of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Karachi, has seized around 48,095-kg pulses export consignment, which was deliberately declared as chewing gum shipment to obtain bogus rebates. The government has already put a ban on the export of pulses to protect local markets from its shortage.
Sources told Business Recorder on Wednesday that action was taken on a tip-off revealed that the Eagle International, Karachi, (NTN 3110394) has mis-declared pulses export consignment as chewing gum shipment, which was blindly cleared by the Model Customs Collectorate (MCC), aimed to acquire multiple benefits.
Taking action on the said information, DGI&I Director Fazl Qadir Qalbani has given the task to DGI&I Additional Director Gul Rehman and his team, including DGI&I Deputy Director Syed Shakeel Shah and Faqr Shah, Appraising officer to probe the matter, sources said.
Reacting on the directives, two containers bearing Nos. TTNU-1730790 and UACU-3013185 manifested and blindly cleared through PaCCS system without any physical examination were detained at QICT departure, they said. Sources said that examination divulged that the containers were stuffed with pulse (Dal Moong), weighting around 48,095-kg, which was banned.
They said ththe accused exporter has deliberately concealed the actual export item and declared the containers stuff as chewing gum valued at $0.469 million, destined for Jabal-e-Ali, Dubai, aimed to provide huge losses to national exchequer on account of fake rebates.
Sources said that the PaCCS system has failed to deliver the goods because of its flaws, which are being exploited by traders to evade customs duty and taxes besides importing banned items. Before the commencement of PaCCS, Goods Declarations (GDs) was filed manually where almost every consignment was examined.
However, after computerisation of customs clearance process, a certain percentage are released by the Risk Management System (RMS) without any assessment or examination and out of total consignments, fewer are actually sent for physical examination, they said. Therefore, system provides safe-passage to traders to evade taxes and clear their mis-declared goods without using any other illegal tactics.
They said that the accused exporter has adopted a novel method of committing this fraud by resorting to mis-declaration, over-invoicing for inadmissible rebate and smuggling of food items by circumventing exports control. It may be mentioned that the declared item is rebatable, with rebate admissible at 2.44 percent of the FOB value as per SRO 931. The FIR has been lodged and investigation has also been initiated in this regard.
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