Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has recovered Rs 1.1 billion from a Chinese firm for importing machinery into Pakistan without filing of Goods Declaration (GD) in fiscal year 2016-17 at Port Qasim with the effort of Collector and Chief Collectors, well-informed sources told Business Recorder. This was disclosed in an interim report received in FBR headquarters Islamabad from the Chief Collector Customs Karachi.
Giving the background, the sources said M/s. Huaneng Fuyun Ports & Shipping entered into an Implementation Agreement (IA) with the Port Qasim Authority (PQA) on September 29, 2016 for establishing a dedicated coal terminal by converting PQA's marginal wharves 3 & 4 on Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis for un-interrupted supply of coal to up-country power projects (Sahiwal Electric Power Project) through available railway infrastructure. For this purpose, M/s. Huaneng Fuyun Ports & Shipping imported various consignments of machinery and equipments from 2016 onwards.
According to sources, the importer installed four consignments of imported machinery and equipment at their site (marginal wharves 3 & 4) that arrived vide IGM Nos. 107/23.12.2018 and IGM 231/24.05.2017 without filing Goods Declarations (GDs). The sources said the Collector, MCC, Port Qasim was directed to carry out a detailed scrutiny of the imported consignments of M/s. Huaneng Fuyun. Accordingly, notices of March 28, 2018 and March 30, 2018 were issued under Section 26 of the Customs Act, 1969 to the importer for production of relevant documents ie B/L, invoice and packing lists etc.
A detailed scrutiny of imports made by the importer through Port Qasim revealed that 14 consignments were imported since 2016 of which 4 were cleared against payment of duty & taxes. For the remaining 10 consignments, the details are as follows: (i) two consignments of "coal belt conveyor" and railway track fittings" arrived on December 2, 2016 and the importer filed GDs, ie, PQIB-HC-6841-10-01-2017 & PQIB-HC-6843-10-01-2017 for clearance thereof by paying upfront amount of Rs 5,795,580/- and Rs 19,854,390/- respectively.
However, the importer utilized the goods without payment of balance amount to the tune of Rs 237 million; and (ii) eight consignments of different machinery and equipments arrived on December 23, 2016, March 11, 2017 and May 24, 2017 and the importing company utilized the imported machinery and equipments without filing GDs.
The recoverable amount of duty and taxes against these consignments has been worked out at Rs 885 million The sources maintained that cargo of 8 B/Ls was off-loaded at marginal wharves 1 & 2 meant for non-containerized cargo and moved as well as utilized at Jetty site (marginal wharves 3 & 4) without filing GDs and without reporting to the customs.
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