The cheques of refund claims worth million of rupees of over dozens of tanners and leather exporting companies of Lahore and Karachi have either been misplaced or stolen at the Care Collectorate Karachi office.
The Pakistan Tanners Association (PTA) Central Chairman Agha Saiddain while talking to Business Recorder here on Tuesday disclosed that the association had received a number complaints from the Lahore and Karachi based leading tanners and exporting companies, many cheques worth millions of rupees have either been misplaced or stolen at the Care Collectorate Karachi office. The official record shows that cheques against the refund claims have been dispatched through private Courier and the same were not received by our members, he said.
Agha said that he personally visited to meet the Chief Collector Customs at Karachi who showed serious concern on the issue. He called the staff concerned and directed it to issue duplicate cheques after due verification from the State bank of Pakistan to the effect that the misplaced cheques have not been cashed.
Accordingly, the details of misplaced cheques were forwarded to the State Bank of Pakistan and at the same time affected parties were asked to get certificate from their banks that cheques were not cashed. The companies were also directed to submit their undertaking in support of their claims that they would be responsible in case of false certificate/statement at any stage, he added.
Despite all this hectic exercise the department has failed to issue duplicate cheques to our members, who are facing acute shortage of funds, which has badly affected our exports, Agha said. He further pointed out that the exports of leather and leather product have already declined while the liquidity crunch because of the misplacement of cheques at Care Collectorate Karachi office could further affect the exports.
The leather exports during first nine months (July 2007 to February 2008) has been declined from $263.471 million to $204.130 as compared to corresponding period of 2008-09. Similarly, the leather sector exports reduced from $779.208 million of July 2007 to February 2008 to $669.508 million in July 2008 to February 2009. The matter has already been taken up with the Chairman Federal Board of Revenue, he said and urged the chairman to immediately resolve the issue of misplaced cheques.