The ill-regulated thus problematic cargo clearance procedures at the country’s sea ports are delaying the shipment of exportable cargo giving an opportunity to expl`oiters who are extracting huge sums as “speed money” from the time-conscious exporters. According to Anti-Narcotic Force (ANF) Sindh Director General Brig Muhammad Wajid the bribes are being taken in the name of government officials belonging to Pakistan Customs and Anti-Narcotic Force (ANF) apparently to speed up the clearance of exportable and imported cargo at the country’s seaports.
Wajid revealed this during a meeting here with the members of Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PHMA) at the PHMA House Thursday. “There is a world of corrupt people who secure bribes in the name of ANF and Customs,” he said.
The ANF chief said in a recent case unearthed by his department a group of frauds demanded bribe of Rs 1.7 mfrom the exporters for speeding up the clearance of their cargo. “Of the total bribery, Rs 1 mhad gone to the inspector (fake), Rs 0.5 mto a milk seller and the balance to others involved,” Wajid told the meeting. The group, he said, had been arrested and taken to task despite the opposition of some judges who, the ANF chief said, found no law to support such arrests. The bribed money, however, was recovered from the culprits, he said. “You destroy the entire system while offer a bribe for getting a speedy customs clearance of your goods,” the director general told the exporters adding “I can’t stop the corruption but we don’t want you to be exploited”.
Having a totally different version of the story, the exporters, particularly from dollar-fetching textile sector, claimed to have had their business a “total loss” due to lack of coordination between the government institutions responsible for inspecting outbound containers and other packed commodities at the ports.
“It is a total loss for us if we go for airborne exports,” Pakistan Apparel Forum (PAF) Chairman Muhammad Jawed Bilwani told Pakistan Today commenting on airborne exports as an alternative..
Bilwani said the exporters’ earning on a single shipment ranges from five to eight percent that is eroded by the air freight. “All we want our airborne exports is to enable us recover the cost,” the PAF chief said.
During the meeting, the exporters complained that insufficient number of dogs, trained to find drugs or explosives by smell, available with the Force was also a major source of delay in cargo clearance. “You at least need 25 such dogs against the existing 4,” an exporter advised to the ANF director.
Conceding that it was indeed a daunting task to get the government institutions do a job on its merit, Brig Wajid pledged affective measures to quicken the clearance process. “We have a lot of dogs. In fact, dogs’ inspection never delays the clearance.” Instead, he said, sniffer dogs had enabled the Force detect and hold some 12 containers during last one and half year. “These unprecedented detentions also include 550 kilograms of heroin,” said Wajid. He assured the exporters that a joint meeting of all stakeholders would soon be held to discuss the bottlenecks.
