Custom CARE authority has no time to see the delegation of Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) headed by Senior Vice President of KCCI Jawed Bilwani wanted to meet the authority and discuss important issues relating to trade and industry.
The delegation waited more than three hours to see the authority but returned unsuccessfully. It is said that the concerned officer was busy in a TV interview. It is evident that the Custom Officials in CARE are in connivance with the terminal operators to earn billions of rupees for them, thereby penalising our member importers with huge amounts in demurrage charges.
KCCI most fervently has appealed to the Advisor on Finance to Prime Minister as well as the Chairman, FBR to most seriously take notice of such fraudulent acts of the Custom Officials who are adopting purposely, delaying tactics and penalising our member importers, which is greatly increasing the costs of the imported material and also hurting the economy. A thorough investigation and remedy are needed in this regard. Large number of our members are complaining that despite a proper "CARE SYSTEM" they are unnecessarily being harassed by the Custom Officials adopting delaying tactics and are hand in glove with the Terminals to earn more and more money in the form of demurrage gratuitously charged to our member importers.
With the introduction of the "CARE SYSTEM" the period of demurrage had reduced from the previous 14 days to 5 days. So the importers were really getting the facility of "CARESYSTEM" properly.
It is indeed a great irony that when there is a global recession the Custom Officials here are harassing our member importers with delaying tactics. Officials. In any case the period of demurrage was reduced to maximum 5 days. However, it has been observed that since the last one month, the Custom Officials are ignoring the "CARE SYSTEM"process.-PR