Khyber Tobacco asks FBR to implement T&T system ‘flawlessly’

ISLAMABAD: A leading national tobacco manufacturer has asked the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to implement the track and trace system flawlessly at all local tobacco manufacturing units to control counterfeiting and Federal Excise Duty (FED) evasion in Pakistan.

In a statement issued by Samera Irfan, the CEO of Khyber Tobacco Company on Friday, the said company is the first company in the country to have already implemented trace and track across its sales and production. It is in the interest of the tobacco industry that the Trace and Track system shall be implemented across the country.

Irfan welcomed the recent announcement by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to expedite Trace and Track installation in all cigarette factories within two weeks. She stated that it is the best and most efficient way to stop counterfeit products and FED evasion. Khyber Tobacco is the first company in the country to have already implemented Trace and Track across its sales and production.

However, Irfan also commented on the poor implementation of orders on the ground level, stating, these steps including Trace and Track and FED are inevitable to increase tax collection from the tobacco sector. However, what is required is the implementation of these orders by the administrators in a true sense. Irfan also requested the government to improve border controls to discourage non-duty paid smuggled cigarettes, especially at the border with Azad Jammu Kashmir, which is the most popular point of cross-border cigarette smuggling.

Recently, FBR Chairman Asim Ahmad informed the Senate Standing Committee on Finance that the FBR made 811 seizures in which 61 million sticks of smuggled cigarettes were seized during 2022-23.

Irfan insisted that all tobacco manufacturers should implement Trace and Track, not just Khyber Tobacco. Trace and Track is a system used to monitor and track the movement of goods, products, or people throughout a supply chain or transportation process, utilizing technologies such as barcodes, RFID tags, GPS tracking, and other types of sensors to collect data, she added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023