The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has directed the Directorate General of Intelligence and Investigation, Customs and Excise to strengthen its intelligence network for monitoring all containers during their transshipment from Karachi to other cities.
Sources told Business Recorder on Friday that the board has issued guidelines for the DG Intelligence to ensure constant check on containers till the same reached its destination in original condition. The board wanted to avert incidences of missing containers during transshipment.
According to the instructions, the DG intelligence has been asked to immediately complete investigation of missing containers during the last few years. The intelligence agency should track down these missing containers.
Secondly, the directorate should monitor all the containers leaving Karachi for upcountry ports and devise a system to ensure that these are accounted for, the directive said.
The directorate has recently conducted a preliminary investigation of 6,000 imported containers cleared from Karachi, confirming that only 100-150 containers were missing during the transshipment.
In the absence of effective system, the data analysis is required to confirm transshipment of containers from Karachi to Lahore, Rawalpindi and Peshawar with the help of Goods Declarations (GD) filed by the importers. The containers transshipped to other cities have to be released against the documents. Transshipment data has to be verified from the relevant collectorates of customs.
It has been brought to the notice of the board that the collectors of customs have not strictly implemented procedure of sealing of containers.
The FBR has issued instructions to the collectors of customs that the procedure for container sealing should be implemented in letter and spirit. In future, customs should only use quality seals and details of such seals shall be recorded into "One-customs" transshipment system.
The customs container security unit staff has to conduct sealing of containers. The container and vehicle would be sealed with prescribed security and unbreakable seals with progressive serial number. In addition, a wire seal will be used to hold together the locking bolts of the containers and numbered adhesive tapes will be used on joints where doors of containers close on top and bottoms of the doors and on the hinges.