Misplaced cheques: FBR rebuttal contested by PTA chief

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has rebutted a news item published in Business Recorder on April 15 captioned 'Refund Claims cheques lost at Karachi Care Collectorate', and said that no duty drawback cheque pertaining to Pakistan Tanners Association (PTA) was ever stolen or misplaced.
According to a press release issued here on Friday, a spokesman of the FBR said that a key reason behind non-receipt of the cheques by the exporters was their submission of non-operational/outdated account numbers. However, the system was being streamlined to ensure smooth issuance of duty drawback cheques to exporters and, as a facilitation measure, the board had decided to issue fresh cheques to reputed manufacturers-cum-exporters on undertaking the amount involved in the fresh cheques would be deducted from their future claims in case old cheques were found enchased, the press released adds.
However, contrary to FBR denials, further evidence collected in this regard by this scribe showed that Afzaal Ahmed Wattoo, Assistant Collector (Exports-DDB) of the Model Collectorate Customs, PaCCS, Custom House, Karachi had written a number of letters to the Personal Chief Manager, State Bank of Pakistan Karachi to confirm whether payment against the cheques in question had been made or not and if the cheques had not been encashed, payment should be stopped. For instance, the Assistant Collector wrote letters vide No MCC-Misc-118/2008-MCC (AC Rebate) dated 6.02.2009 in respect of Eastern Leather Co for two cheques, dated 04.02.2008 in respect of M/s EPCT Pvt Limited for 22 cheques, dated 03.12.2008 in respect of M/s National Tanneries for 6 cheques, dated 06.2.2009 in respect of M/s National Tanneries for 5 cheques, dated 17.11 2008 in respect of M/s Riaz Tanneries for 4 cheques, dated 25.10.2008 in respect of Eastern Leather Co for 25 cheques and so many other letters whose copies are available with Business Recorder. The FBR official had requested the State Bank authorities to take an early action with regard to stop the payment.
When contacted, Pakistan Tanners Association Chairman Agha Saiddain said that a number of letters written by the Assistant Collector to the State Bank's Chief Manager for stopping payment against the lost cheques and further assurance of issuing fresh cheques on receipt of undertaking clearly indicated that the cheques had definitely been misplaced. He said the duty drawback cheques, which usually are "Payees A/C only" in nature, are handed over/delivered to the exporters so that they could deposit the same in their account.
Moreover, export is a complete documented business and the exporters' business and banks' details are available with the Customs Department, he said. "Why would an exporter submit outdated/non-operational account to the FBR?" he questioned. The duty drawback cheques are issued after complete scrutiny and thorough examination of the exports' record and bank account's details while the whole procedure takes a considerable time. "Why did the Model Collectorate Customs write a number of letters for confirming and stopping payment against the cheques in question involving huge amount if these were not misplaced," he further questioned?
The Director Eastern Leather Company (Pvt) Limited, whose 40 cheques were lost, requested in a letter vide number ECL/80 dated November 22, 2008, to the Collector Customs to settle rebate claims processed through CARE pending since 2007. While referring a meeting of the PTA delegation with the Chief Collector Customs, Munir Qureshi on November 12, 2008, he said, "we were surprised to note in the meeting that Customs Department has issued cheques against the claims as per list provided to the delegation but we never received any of these cheques of the attached list provided by you. It seems that these cheques have been misplaced by the Customs Department or in transit" he said.