A taxman has levelled serious corruption allegations against his seniors monitoring Pakistan-China trade through the land route, sparking another controversy and causing further trouble for the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), but the move may cost the officer dearly as some of the allegations appear to be untrue.
A letter from the collector customs has highlighted deep-rooted corruption in the earnings arm of the government. The officer alleged that “organised crime” was taking place in the tax department.
The letter, sent by Collector Customs Sust Border Nisar Ahmad to the customs member operations on Thursday, appeared to be suggesting that a racket existed in the Customs Department with the blessing from the top.
The officer had taken up the post of collector customs Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) in September this year on the recommendation of a cabinet member.
The officer claimed that there were “abnormal anomalies in the assessment of duties and taxes at Sust Dry Port” – the land route for Pakistan-China trade.
He alleged that the taxes collected at the port were less than half of the actual duties and taxes as the rest of the money was not collected due to a nexus between the officers of Customs Intelligence and the officials working at Sust border. The Customs Intelligence has denied the allegations.
The officers who had been accused termed the allegations “absurd and ridiculous”, saying an inquiry would be launched soon to determine the nature of the allegations and take disciplinary action.
The officer alleged that the average collection of duties and taxes per container was astonishingly low at only Rs2.8 million, though the port was known for the regular import of fabrics of all types, mobile phone accessories, cosmetics, tyres and garments from China.
The allegations surfaced at a time when the FBR was facing pressure due to the taxpayer data leak, including that of Justice Qazi Faiz Isa. The officer went on to say that a principal appraiser was running a cartel in connivance with certain traders and had been involved in the criminal evasion of duties and taxes since his posting in 2019.
He alleged that the FBR’s member administration showed leniency towards the appraiser, an allegation that was totally false as the member administration had turned down a request to spare the appraiser.
Nisar Ahmad did not respond to a request for comments. FBR’s member customs operation was also not available for comments.
The officer alleged that the DG intelligence started blocking Goods Declarations (GDs) at Sust Dry Port when the principal appraiser was off-duty despite the fact that the average revenue per declaration had increased by 123.5% after his ouster.
However, the sources said that the DG intelligence blocked the clearance of goods on complaints that Nisar Ahmad was not fully collecting the due taxes by facilitating the mis-declaration of goods. In three instances, the DG intelligence found more than 100% loss of duties and taxes, they added.
The Customs Department and the Directorate of Customs Intelligence have refuted the allegations.
“These are mere dereliction of facts to malign the seniors. It is strongly asserted that no supportive recommendations have ever been made by DG I&l Customs to member admin or any other senior officer of FBR.”
The allegation that when the customs appraiser was surrendered, the DG intelligence started blocking GDs, had also been found to be baseless. Between September 17, 2022 and October 9, 2022, 120 declarations were filed and none was blocked.
Hence, there is no linkage between the surrender of the said official and the blocking of suspicious consignments by the DG Intelligence Customs.
Regarding the contention of the collector G-B that the blocking of consignments by the DG intelligence was hampering the performance of duties, it is pointed out that during the current season more than 465 GDs were filed at Sust Dry Port.
Out of these, only eight were blocked and that too on the receipt of credible information about the misdeclaration of description and quantities.
Out of the eight blocked consignments, only three were arranged for re-examination. The collectorate collected duties and taxes of Rs6.44 million on the three GDs and the re-examination by the intelligence in the presence of the staff of collectorate, representative of NLC Sust Dry Port and the importer resulted in the detection of a huge quantity of undeclared items and cumulative evasion of duties and taxes of Rs9.44 million (146%) over and above the duties and taxes already collected.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 26th, 2022.
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