Attack on Karachi airport: importers reluctant to file refund claims

Importers appeared to be reluctant to submit details of their consignments which got damaged during the recent attack on Karachi airport, despite receiving formal requests in this regard from different trade associations. Karachi Customs Agents Association and Pakistan Arms & Ammunition Merchants & Manufacturers Association have requested the consignees to submit claims of their damaged consignments.
Sources said that all three cargo services - Gerry's dnata, Shaheen Airport Services and Royal Airport Services had received over 1000 air-shipments between June 6 and 8. They said that around 60 per cent of load of air-shipments was dealt at Gerry's dnata, 30 per cent consignments were handled at Royal Airport Services, while remaining 10pc cargo was processed at Shaheen Airport Services.
Sources in the Customs airport department said that around 90 Goods Declarations (GDs) were processed, each day, and the department roughly generated a revenue of Rs 20 million against duty and taxes. They said that if the valuation of consignments was estimated at 10pc of customs duty, losses in the Karachi airport attack could be around Rs 6 billion.
"Since this estimation of consignments has been assumed on the basis of GDs, which are usually manipulated to evade duty and taxes, the exact losses may be far more than this," they opined. According to sources, importers were not willing to submit claims fearing that they could be penalised for evading tax as they reportedly get themselves involved in under-invoicing.
Replying to a query, sources said that compensation to the affectees was not the responsibility of any government agency as all goods were insured and parked in private warehouses. However, the sources said that the question of paying any compensation to the affectees did not arise because insurance companies did not cover terrorism as a part of their policy.
Meanwhile, a representative of Customs Agents Association said that they had, so far, received not more than 80 claim forms from the importers. "We are only accepting those claim forms where duty and taxes has been paid," a representative of Association said, adding that the Association will make a formal request to the Federal Board of Revenue to refund the duty and taxes of the affected importers to minimise their financial losses.