ISLAMABAD – The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) told the Supreme Court on Wednesday that the national exchequer suffered a loss of Rs 7 billion due to evasion of customs duty by ISAF containers at the Chaman crossing along the Pak-Afghan border.
Appearing on notice, FBR Chairman Salman Siddique told a three-member bench of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Muhammad Sair Ali and Justice Ghulam Rabbani that a total of 2,981 containers went missing, of which 408 containers were identified that had not crossed the border at Chaman.
He said notices had been issued to the importers, National Logistic Cell (NLC), Clearing Agents and Cross Border Agents. He said at Chaman border, the volume of trade was only 35 percent of the total Pak-Afghan transit trade. In this respect, he said the Ministry of Finance had asked the Afghan Ministry of Finance to provide relevant data. He assured the court that FBR would be in a position to apprise the court about the matter within four weeks. Siddiqui said efforts were being made for collecting further evidence to establish that there was an evasion of customs duty on account of non-crossing of containers.
He told the court that the Afghan government had an electronic system to monitor the pilferage of containers while they had no such facility. “It means that the Afghan authorities are more efficient than your administration”, the chief justice asked Siddique. The FBR chairman said the US was assisting the Afghan government in this regard. He informed the court that the officials of the FBR did great efforts while compiling the report on the missing containers. The chief justice praised the effort and hoped FBR would continue its efforts to achieve the desired results.
