The Directorate-General of Customs Training and Research Karachi celebrated 'International World Customs Day' on January 26, 2011. The eventful occasion commenced with a warm reception for the chief guest. It formally began with the recitation of Quranic Verses that brimmed with the idea of knowledge.
The flow of the program was retained by Akber Ali Zaidi and Ms Sobia Kiran who, as hosts of the program, requested Director General Mrs Rubina Wasti, Chief Guest Nisar Ahmed Khan and Asad Raza Rizvi to grace the stage. Initially, the audience was furnished with a brief history of the transformation that took place to take the World Customs Organisation its current shape. It was closely followed by a presentation by Fayaz Rasool who emphasised the discussion of reliable Customs statistics.
In addition to that, he substantiated on the vitality of Customs service not only as a central service but also as an ancient one. Eventually, he obliquely referred to Bible where a tale about an ancient Egyptian Collector had been imprisoned into the black and white of its pages.
The next presentation was given by Ali Waheed Khan, Assistant Collector, MCC, Karachi, on Trade Facilitation, which was followed by Sana Allah Abro's presentation that touched upon the fact that the world borders today need to create a balance between Trade Security and Trade Facilitation. They seemed to be apart from each other, yet they were part of each other, he added.
Consequently, Asad Raza Rizvi spoke at length about launching Computer Based Training into the DGTR Karachi. He elucidated that CBT is being provided in 18 diverse languages and it had also received the 21st UN award. The e-learning program of DGTR was a portion of United Nations Organisation of Drugs and Crime Program which was divided into small modules to retain the attention of the learners and to avoid subsiding interest of the officers. It was an informative and crispy training, unlike the traditional pedagogical methodology.
Director General DGTR Rubina Wasti addressed the audience and reasserted the fact that DGTR has the opportunity of running two regional offices--at Islamabad and Lahore--which had been offering training to those who ranked between Grades 5 and 19. The DGTR was also training Afghan officials.
She supported the idea of knowledge-based administration in Customs Service and forcefully said that knowledge and excellence, being the motto of the DGTR, makes it an alma mater for Pakistan Customs Service, in close relevance to the year 2011 as the Year of Knowledge. "Knowledge is our driving force, and the DGTR Karachi may be declared regional hub for training purpose in existence of huge refurbishment of the building and advance facilities", she added. "Knowledge is information that changes some one or something...." was the key that needed to be unlocked and that was referred to by the Chief Guest. He at length considered both experience and observation as two inseparable forms of knowledge.-PR