Lahore airport gets its own customs collectorate

Move part of broader restructuring of FBR Central Zone

LAHORE: In its latest bid to crack down on smuggling and money laundering, the Federal Board of Revenue has established a new customs collectorate at Lahore’s Allama Iqbal International Airport.

The move is part of a broader restructure of the tax collection authority’s ‘Central Zone’, which comprises Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan and Sialkot. Among other changes, the new structure sees the single chief collector position replaced by two different posts for appraisement and enforcement. It also reorganises the role of the collectorates for Faisalabad and Multan.

A notification bringing these changes into effect was circulated on Friday. The notification also announced the transfers of 478 customs officers, 430 of whom are inspectors.

Previously, customs responsibilities for the Allama Iqbal International Airport used to be the domain of the Lahore Customs Preventive Collectorate. With the new notification in effect, the airport now has a collectorate of its own to scrutinise luggage, curb money laundering and smuggling, and deal with import/export matters within airport limits.

Faisalabad and Multan, under the previous Central Zone structure, had separate collectorates of their own, each of which would be responsible for both appraisement and enforcement matters within district limits.

Following the restructure, customs responsibilities for Faisalabad and Multan will now be handled jointly by two collectorates, one of which will deal solely with appraisement and the other, enforcement. The appraisement collectorate will be based in Faisalabad and the enforcement collectorate in Multan.

The restructure has also replaced the single chief collector post for the Central Zone with two new posts for chief collector appraisement and chief collector enforcement. The appraisement collectorates for Lahore, Faisalabad-Multan and Sialkot will be subordinate to the former while the enforcement collectorates for the same will be subordinate to the latter. The Allama Iqbal International Airport collectorate will fall under the purview of the chief collector enforcement as well.

Meanwhile, sources in the FBR told The Express Tribune that the authority has decided to appoint and transfer hundreds of officers in the next three to five days.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 14^th, 2019.