The Customs Valuation Directorate General has engaged services of M/s SGS of Geneva for verification of values of imports made to Pakistan to check under-valuation of imports. The directorate has informed all Customs collectorates that a letter of accreditation has been issued to M/s SGS Geneva, Switzerland under authorisation of the Central Board of Revenue.
According to the letter every collectorate should send cases suspected of gross under-valuation or fake invoicing, documentation or group under-invoicing, involving other related mal-practices to the regional directorate of Customs Valuation to make the use of this one year free service optimum.
The directorate hoped that this would enable valuation staff to mount pressure on importers indulging in false, fake value invoicing and under-declaration.
It is pointed out that during investigations conducted in the country of exports, the SGS value-net service has detected some cases of gross under-invoicing, fake valuation and false addresses in 17 cases referred to them by the directorate of Valuation.
It may be pointed out that the Central Board of Revenue had engaged services of two international certification agencies namely SGS and Cotecna, which opened offices in Karachi.
The services of these agencies were, however, terminated after a couple of years, as the then government was accused of extorting huge commission for hiring their services.