‘2,600 vehicles with unpaid duty impounded last year’

Finance ministry claims customs amnesty part of crackdown against smuggling.

ISLAMABAD:

Customs officials have seized over 2,600 vehicles last year for their owner’s failure to pay duties on them, according to the finance minister.

In a written response to questions submitted by the Senate, Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh told the legislative body that between January 2009 and March 2010, the government had seized 2,605 vehicles with unpaid duties.

The minister was not present at the Senate question hour and instead sent State Minister Hina Rabbani Khar to handle queries from the Senate.

Some senators alleged that there were as many as 80,000 vehicles in the country with unpaid duties and accused officials at the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) of registering such vehicles without authentic documentation in exchange for bribes.

Khar said that the government had initiated a “customs amnesty scheme” to help regularise vehicles with unpaid duties. She explained that the scheme was launched as part of the government’s effort to curb smuggling. She claimed the FBR will begin collecting data on all such vehicles.

Senators from Fata claimed that many of the vehicles with unpaid duties were smuggled across the border with Afghanistan.

“Rich persons are using such vehicles. Their number is in the tens of thousands in Fata and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa,” said Senator Hafiz Rashid.

‘Employment discrimination’

Senators from Fata, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan staged a token walkout after claiming that citizens from their districts were underrepresented in the federal government, particularly the FBR.

Khar, however, insisted that all government employment, including at the FBR, was based on merit.  “There is no discrimination in government departments pertaining to jobs,” said Khar.

Subsidy to Railways

The government has provided around Rs51 billion to Pakistan Railways to meet the shortfall between its revenue and expenditures in fiscal year 2010, said Finance Minister Sheikh in response to a question by Senator Talha Mahmood.

Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, however, pointed out that much of the spending was necessary. For instance, he said that the government had provided Rs1.8 billion last year to the railways to repair damaged bridges so that suspended services to under-privileged areas could resume.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 7^th,  2011.