CBR offers all confiscated vehicles for relief work
By Adnan Rafique

ISLAMABAD—Central Board of Revenue (CBR) Monday offered to Chief Relief Commissioner for Earthquake Victims 2005 to take all vehicles, confiscated by Pakistan Customs Department, and utilise them in relief work.
Chairman, CBR, M. Abdullah Yusuf said addressing the Quarterly Conference of Collectors of Customs held here Monday. The Chairman expressed the hope that these vehicles, which are of different category, make & model, will help to further accelerate the efforts of the Government to provide relief and succour to the quake affectees.
About 500 confiscated vehicles are currently lying at different collectorates.
The Chairman told the participants that CBR has made a humble contribution to alleviate the sufferings of the victims which include over 50 trucks of relief goods, distributed in the badly-hit areas of AJK & NWFP, besides sending medical teams to provide medical aid and treatment to the injured.
He further informed that a donation of Rs.5 million was deposited in the President's Relief Fund and an amount of Rs.5 million has been allocated for rehabilitation of the employees of CBR who have been affected by the earthquake. The Chairman asked the Collectors to collect complete information of the quake-hit employees of their respective collectorates and pass it on to Member (Admn) to enable CBR to grant appropriate compensation to them.
The Chairman, also touched upon a number of issues confronting with Customs Department which include replication of CARE in other collectorates across the country, under valuation, mis- declaration, smuggling, standardization, Afghan Transit Trade, disposal of confiscated liquor, arms & ammunition, vehicles and narcotics, installation of scanners at the ports and decentralisation of authority. Regarding implementation of Customs reforms, the Chairman stressed upon the need for imparting basic training and learning to the officers and staff.
He also expressed the need to remove deficiencies in the way of implementation of one Customs programme.
He hoped that the PACCS and networking will provide us the required informations. He said that serious efforts were needed to improve the system and make the department transparent and effective.
He asked the collectors to set personal examples to be followed by other junior officers and staff.
About Afghan Transit Trade, Mr. Yusuf observed that the system was still not working ideally. He asked the collectors to address all genuine complaints in this regard.
He also directed Director General Customs Intelligence, Maj. Gen. (Rtd.) Usman Shah to study the issue thoroughly and submit a comprehensive report on it so as necessary steps could be taken to make the system transparent.
The Chairman told the collectors that their job was not simply to sit in the office. He asked them to conduct detailed research and suggest ways and means to improve the system and check leakages.
Talking about the confiscated liquor, arms and amunition, vehicles and narcotics, Abdullah Yusuf directedthe collectors to dis pose them off as per rules and regulations but without any further loss of time. The Chairman was the opinion that the major problem confronting with customs was under-valuation and mis- declaration. He asked collectors to submit reports on the efforts made so far in this regard. "We have to really do much more than what we have already done", CBR chief remarked.
Referring about the working of the officers of CBR and its field formations, the Chairman said that in future integrity and efficiency of the officers would be given due weightage in their promotions, particularly from BS- 18 to BS-19. Earlier, Member (Customs), Shahid Rahim Sheikh, in his address, highlighted the achievements of collectorates in collection of customs duty in first quarter of current financial year and outlined thestrategy to meet the annual targets.
He informed that in the 1st quarter over all collection of customs duty was Rs 28.6 bn against the target of Rs. 26.9 bn, registering an increase of 28% as compared to the same period of last financial year.
He was confident that the annual target of collection will be achieved. Later, the Collectors of Customs, in their separate presentations, briefed the conference about the performance of their respective collectorates.
Briefing the conference on achievements of CARE project, the Collector (Appraisement) & Model Customs Collectorate, Karachi, Mr. Azhar Majid Khalid said that CARE project since its launch on 10th May, 05, cleared cargo imported on 192 vessels which comprised of 17018 consignments brought in 77663 containers. Revenue collected on these consignments come slightly above Rs 9 billion; customs duty Rs. 4.1 billion, sales tax Rs.
3.6 billion, CVT Rs. 1. 268 billion and Federal Excise Rs. 0.1 billion. He apprised that on account of under-invoicing, Model Customs Collectorate, working under CARE, has recovered Rs. 301.49 m and also instituted 53 cases of mis-declaration of description and quality involving revenue to the tune of Rs 38.5 million.
He informed that all import-related functions are now operational and exports are also now being dealt in Model Customs Collectorate.
He stated that for convenience of traders two more branches of National bank of Pakistan have been made operational to collect duty and taxes nearest to their business places.