Every day we hear bad news about Afghan transit containers being stolen or disappearing from the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). When this issue was first highlighted last year, FBR made many statements telling us how they would not allow this situation from happening again. And at that time the FBR issued a consultancy for making tracking equipment, which will be installed on all the containers and help the FBR track each container live. A local Consultancy called, Planners, Engineers and Consultants (PCE) Peshawar had submitted excellent equipment that was using the mobile phone network to track the containers via GPS.
It had a device that would detect movement and it would sound an alarm if the container was opened in between. The device was locally manufactured and could even have the facility for a mic or speaker, so the control room could listen or contact anyone close to the equipment. I believe that the Federal Board of Revenue hired another company called “Trekker”, who had done a lot of advertising in the newspapers just around the time of the bid opening.
I would like to know if FBR hired anyone for this project and what is the progress they have made so far. It has been a long time and we are still seeing the same problems with the Afghan transit containers, while tracking them is a matter of choosing just one simple off-the-shelf equipment. Therefore, can the FBR official please clarify the situation as to what progress they have made to stop this practice?
SHAHRYAR KHAN BASEER
Peshawar
