ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee on Finance directed Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to control smuggling of plastic granules (dana) into the country and called for taking appropriate steps in this regard.
Chairing the committee, Khawaja Suhail Mansoor said that loss of billions of rupees had been incurred due to the smuggling.
"More than 20,000 bags of Plastic granules per day were being smuggled from Iran to as deep as the city of Lahore but FBR has not taken any step against the menace," he added.
The committee also suggested that the directive should be issued by FBR to officials deputed at Lahore office to take action against the issues and if the appropriate action is not taken by the concerned officials, the staff should be replaced.
It was also directed to FBR that the awareness should be made regarding Plastic granules among the public to support the officials.
"The FBR is doing its the best to control such menace, besides we are facing resources constraint and shortage of staff deputed there, Member Custom FBR", Muhammad Riaz said while speaking in the committee.
The FBR will use its all resources available to control it, he said while assuring the committee.
The committee directed FBR to come up with viable proposals to the Standing Committee for its support to increase the capacity in order to improve the performance of Directorate of Intelligence and Evaluation and the Committee also directed the FBR to gear up its efforts to control the smuggling especially on the borders of Iran and Afghanistan with Pakistan.
The Committee was informed that 3 per cent of goods transported to Afghanistan was carried by National Logistic Cell (NLC) while 97 per cent by Private Carriers and some portion of it by Railways too.
The Chairman of the Committee said that about 400-500 per cent price of imported items were under-invoiced which were causing losses worth of billion of rupees to National exchequer.
Quoting the example of the import from China, he said, China had declared export of $12 billion to Pakistan but FBR declared $4 billion import from China, "where is the difference of $8 billion", he added.
Director General (Evaluation) FBR, Razia Sultana said that if any valuation ruling went unfavorable for importer, he got the stay order against the ruling.
However, the cases worth of more than Rs 100 billion were still pending in the courts, she added.
Replying the question, she said that FBR could not hire advocate itself to dispose the case because it was all done by Law department.
The committee directed FBR to present the detail all cases pending with courts.
It was also directed by the committee that the long-term and short-term strategy should be developed to control these menaces.
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