Govt gets tough on flour, fertiliser smuggling

ISLAMABAD:

The government has declared wheat, flour, sugar and fertiliser as essential items and enforced two-year jail term along with fines if the committees are smuggled out of the country, officials said on Monday.

According to a notification issued by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), the four commodities had been declared as essential commodities under the relevant provisions of the Customs Act, 1969.

A senior FBR official told The Express Tribune that following the notification, strict action could now be taken against the elements involved in the smuggling of the items out of the country.

The punishment for smuggling of essential commodities under the Customs Act included a fine equal to the total value of the smuggled item and imprisonment up to two years, the official added.

The new measure came as Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif chaired a high-level review meeting to prevent the smuggling of these four commodities. Shehbaz ordered an immediate crackdown on the smugglers.

While reviewing the measures to stop of smuggling of sugar, wheat, flour, and urea from the country, Prime Minister Shehbaz sought a comprehensive strategy to overcome the problem in the long term.

He directed that an immediate operation should be launched against those involved in the heinous activity. “Smuggling is a menace for any society and in the present economic situation, Pakistan cannot bear smuggling in any way,” he said.

He expressed displeasure at the slow pace of work regarding the end of smuggling and asked for an increase in check posts in the border districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. He also ordered immediate action against warehouses involved in hoarding.

The prime minister directed that anti-smuggling courts should be made effective and functional immediately and the number of these courts should be increased. “Exemplary punishment should be given to those who were causing loss of billions of dollars to the country.”

During the meeting, the FBR, the interior ministry and other law-enforcement institutions briefed the prime minister about the measures taken to stop intra-provincial and out-of-country smuggling.

The meeting was informed that a countrywide operation was continuing. The FBR and the law-enforcement institutions seized 49 trucks on Sunday while the Frontier Corps foiled attempts to smuggle thousands of tonnes of urea and sugar and confiscated the commodities.

It was informed that joint patrolling teams were being set up to stop cross-border smuggling and on the reports of intelligence agencies four joint patrolling checkpoints were established in Balochistan, where law-enforcement institutions and the FBR would work together.

The prime minister directed that Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco) provide real-time satellite imagery of the country’s borders and data of movement in order to put a stop to smuggling.

It was further informed that warehouses in the border districts were being identified and dealers and their facilitators were being located with the help of a track and trace system after the seizure of goods during the failed attempts of smuggling.

The meeting was apprised of the officers allegedly facilitating the smuggling. The representatives of intelligence agencies said that not only smuggled goods and smuggling routes were identified but the persons involved in such activities had also been also pinpointed.

It was told that 740 warehouses used for hoarding, were being identified in the border districts across the country. In the last four days, the law-enforcement agencies confiscated 2,800 metric tonnes of sugar and 1,400 metric tonnes of urea during numerous raids.

Shehbaz instructed the Punjab chief secretary to supply the sugar seized during the recent operations to the shopkeepers. “It should be ensured that sugar should be sold at the government’s fixed rate of Rs95 per kilogramme,” he said.

He directed the food security minister to call a meeting of the Sugar Advisory Board to determine the support price of sugarcane. He said all these measures should be strictly implemented and a report along with a long-term strategy should be presented in the next two days.

The meeting was attended by federal ministers Rana Sanaullah Khan, Murtaza Mehmood, Tariq Cheema, Special Assistant to Prime Minister Ahad Cheema, senior officers of relevant institutions and law-enforcement agencies and the provincial chief secretaries.

(WITH INPUT FROM APP)