— FRB refutes allegations leveled against senior Customs officials
ISLAMABAD: The Collector of Customs, Gilgit Baltisran Nisar Ahmad has uncovered in an unusual letter written by him to the Member custom operations FBR a cartel of senior 21 custom officers allegedly involved in corrupt practices causing massive revenue losses in the Gilgit Baltistan customs.
According to details, the collector GB has informed the member customs operations Mukarram Jah Ansari that DG Custom Intelligence Faiz Ahmad and the Chief Collector customs Islamabad both aggrieved on his revenue raising efforts and a corresponding reduction in the money-making opportunities in GB customs had made any honest revenue collection efforts difficult for the collector to make in the GB customs.
According to the serious allegations made in the collector’s letter, Dry Port Sust in Gilgit Baltistan is being used as a big money making engine and BS 21 custom officers who were required under law to safeguard the import revenue there through their effective supervision were themselves driving that money making engine through their strategy of posting there a principal appraiser Raja Waseem Ahmad who is known for organising and leading systemic customs crimes and big fiscal frauds including drugs smuggling and protecting this custom official from accountability for his making massive amounts of money at the cost of causing heavy revenue losses every day.
The principal appraiser Raja Waseem, it has been alleged, takes from importers a bribe worth Rs3 million on each GD and in return clears around a 30 ton container of different imported goods on payment of a nominal duty and taxes of Rs2.8 million causing a massive revenue loss every day on the strength of the support of DG custom intelligence Faiz Ahmad with whom he allegedly shares the bribe money so collected.
In his letter to member customs operations FBR, the collector GB customs has disclosed that after his posting as Collector, he had raised revenue collection from Rs2.8 million per container to Rs6.4 million per container but Raja Waseem principal appraiser continued to erect obstacles on the way including strikes by the local traders.
When he proceeded against the Principal Appraiser, the collector added, and sent him off duty, the average revenue collection per container rose by 123.5 percent. The collector wrote further that after prima facie establishing his corrupt practices in a preliminary enquiry, when Raja Waseem was ready for suspension and charge sheet, DG Custom Intelligence stepped in to rescue the principal appraiser from the difficult situation.
The DG custom intelligence, the collector has alleged, spent two hours with member Admin FBR and got the proceedings against the principal appraiser transferred to an additional director of custom intelligence who works under DG in his office at Islamabad.
Moreover, the collector disclosed in his letter, that the DG custom intelligence started blocking the containers of imported goods after he ( the collector) had raised per container average revenue collection from Rs2.8 million to Rs6.4 million while he let the containers of imported goods go unhindered when Raja Waseem principal appraiser was causing massive revenue losses, was collecting on average duty/ taxes of Rs2.8 million per containers and was taking from importers Rs3 million per container as a bribe money for clearing their imported goods at nominal duty and taxes.
Making another important disclosure in the letter, the collector GB Customs has brought in the knowledge of member customs operations that chief collector Islamabad has compelled him twice to disobey the orders of Chief Court Gilgit Baltistan making his working as collector there difficult for him.
Sources said that this is one of the typical custom scams backed by senior custom officers which cause this indebted nation revenue losses worth billions every year.
Sources told that DG custom Intelligence and Member customs operations have allegedly joined hands to back and cover up such scams.
How the member custom operation will now react to this scam will show in a large measure how these senior custom officers when confronted with such scams try to push them under the carpet and set to begin their preparations for yet another revenue loss scam.
FBR refutes allegationsÂ
Meanwhile, the FBR spokesperson on the query of this scribe replied that Directorate of Customs intelligence in collaboration with officials of Pakistan Customs, have been able to identify cases of misdeclaration and evasion of duties and taxes at Sost Dry Port.
Besides generating additional revenue for the state’s exchequer, this collaboration has also enabled identification of delinquent Customs officials, against whom disciplinary proceedings are underway.
Regarding the contention of the Collector-GB that blocking of consignments by Dt Gen I&I is hampering him from performing his duties, it is pointed out that during the current season more than 465 GDs were filed at Dryport Sost.
Out of these only eight (08) GDs were blocked on receipt of credible information about mis-declaration of description and quantities. For their joint examination the PA (I&I) was sent to Sost who reported to the concerned Assistant Collector on 21.10.2022 and remained there till 3.11.2022.
However, out of the eight (08) blocked GDs only three (03) were arranged for re-examination. The Collectorate had collected duties & taxes of Rs 6.44 million on these three GDs, the re-examination by PA I&I in the presence of the staff of Collectorate, representative of NLC Dryport Sost and the importer resulted in detection of huge quantity of undeclared items involving cumulative evasion of duties & taxes of Rs 9.44 million (146%) over and above the duties & taxes already collected.
Anticipating that further re-examination will lead to similar or more detections, the remaining five (05) consignments, despite being blocked by I&I Customs, were not arranged for re-examination and were either released manually by the Collectorate at its own or in light of orders of the Court.
FBR spokesperson also said that the allegations of Collector-GB were examined and have been found to be mere accusations and dereliction of facts to malign the seniors.
“It is strongly asserted that neither any supportive recommendations, written or verbal, have ever been made by DG I&I-Customs for PA Raja Waseem to Member Admn or any other senior officer of FBR nor any discussion thereon was done. The allegation that when the said official was surrendered on 17.9.2022, the Dt Gen I&I-Customs started blocking the GDs is also baseless because between 17.9.2022 and 09.10.2022, one hundred and twenty (120) GDs were filed and none of these was blocked,” he added.
The first GD was blocked on 10.10.2022. Hence the inter-relation being drawn between the surrender of the said official and blocking of highly suspicious consignments by Directorate
Gen I&I-Customs is also unsubstantiated.
