The Pakistan Ship Agents Association (PSAA) has urged the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) that ship-owners may be exempted from customs penalties in the event of excess or shortages in goods stuffed in a container. The penalties are charged under 'Shippers Load Stow and Count'.
In its proposals for the Federal Budget for 2004-05, the association pointed out that the containers are stuffed with cargo by the shippers and sealed with their own, handed over to the ship-owners for transportation to the port of destination.
As such and in conformity with the international shipping practice the ship-owners or its agents are not responsible for the contents of the containers.
The PSAA demanded that clause 24 of section 156 of the Customs Act, 1969 be restored to its original form. The section was amended in the Finance Act of 1993 to make ship-owners responsible for any change in counting of contents of the containers.
It is further pointed out that under Section 156 of the Act, Customs treat the local ship agents as the ship-owners. The law should be amended to make the ship-owners or ship agents liable for shortage or excess in contents of a container under the Port & Investment (P&I) Club.
In case of shortages beyond permissible tolerance limit (0.25 % on non-POL cargo, 0.50 % on POL cargo and none on dry bulk cargo) the Customs penalises ship agents on the full amount of shortages rather than on the differential/incremental amount beyond the permissible limit.
The association demanded that the tolerance limits should be increased to 0.50 % for all bulk cargoes in accordance with the international practice.
The association said that currently Customs has stepped up measures to control the leakage of foreign exchange by importers and exporters through under-invoicing and over valuation.
Goods are not allowed to be exported in cases where there is no guarantee of repatriation of export proceeds.
The PSAA suggested that freedom should be given to the exporters and importers to trade goods without being questioned about money flows. As long as all trade is recorded by Income Tax department which can verify any tax evasion.
The Association suggested that the policy of Karachi Port Trust (KPT) on Land Leasing needs to be reviewed to make it more investment friendly. It said that present policy of the KPT for leasing out land in its industrial areas and outside the walled areas is not conducive to investment in port and cargo related infrastructure.
The ship agents urged the CBR to allow more bonded warehouses and off dock terminals to promote competition and reduce logistic costs for FCL (Full Container Load) cargo and LCL (Less than Container Load) cargo. Current license holders cannot handle their business volume.
Comments
Comments are closed.