The Customs department has principally agreed to provide a hearing opportunity to the clearing agents before blocking their licenses. The decision was taken during a meeting at Model Customs Collectorate Appraisement, West, with the representatives of Karachi Customs Agents Association (KCAA).
According to minutes of the meeting, the customs department earlier used to block the User ID of customs agents without giving them a hearing opportunity on account of default of importer.
Collector Muhammad Saleem principally agreed to take KCAA on board and allow a hearing opportunity to the clearing agents before blocking their licenses. The collector also accepted all agenda points of KCAA and issued necessary instructions for their implementation.
The association proposed that exclusive timings for hearings of reviews should be fixed by the Collectorate, which was accepted by the collector. Consequently, exclusive timings will now be fixed from 9.30 am to 2.30 pm on all working days for hearing of reviews. The collector on the issue of unnecessary repetitive marking for examination by the assessment groups issued instructions to the concerned officers. However, random examinations will still be carried out by the Collectorate, if needed.
The issue of calling unnecessary documents by appraisers was also discussed during the meeting and the collector in this regard asked the customs' agents to bring such cases in the notice of the concerned additional collector for action. He also directed to upload all relevant documents at the time of filing of GD as required vide Public Notice No. 01/2014 besides examining the same.
On being questioned about the problem of late grounding and late feeding of the examination reports by KCAA, it was informed that almost all examination staff was working for more than 12 hours a day and even on Saturdays and Sundays. Due to the said efforts, the backlog was now under control.
The examination staff has been provided tablet devices for reports entry in the system from the examination yard. It was further apprised that a dedicated container, with installed air conditioners had been placed in the examination yard so that the examination reports might be forwarded from the yard. Feeding of examination reports was thus being done on real time basis. There might be an issue of poor signals in the yard, which would be resolved shortly. The examination report of the GD would however be sent on the same day.
The collector also directed the concerned officers to monitor all above activities.
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