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Lahore dry port fire

"Duty on gutted

goods if paid

will be returns"

LAHORE: The Collector Customs, Sarfaraz Ahmad

Khan, on Wednesday said that the Customs Department would return th duty of gutted items if it had been paid. Talking to the APP about the payment of duty by some of the

importers only a few days ago, he said speaking strictly legally,

the Customs was not responsible for the fire incident and duty had

been received on goods imported but keeping in view the special

circumstances, the Customs would return the duty charged on items

gutted in the fire.

As far as the responsibility of paying compensation, he said

the Customs Department is not the custodian of goods and can't be

held responsible.

About the losses in terms of revenue to the government, he

said a three-member committee headed by Deputy Collector, Dry

Port, Mohammad Arshad has been constituted to assess the losses

to importers as well as the government which it would have

received as revenue.

He said the Lahore Collectorate of Customs accumulates

nearly Rs 70 crore as revenue every month and most of it comes

from the Dry Port.

NO compensation by PR

The Chairman, Pakistan Railways, Mian

Mohammad Azhar, has said there was no question of paying

compensation for the gutted goods in the Monday fire at Lahore Dry Port by the Railways.

He said the Railways is merely a

transporter of goods and once they reach a destination, it is no

more responsible legally.

Clarifying his point, he said the Railways acts as a bailee

of consignments as given in the Railways Act, section 161. He

said piles of the cargo were lying even outside the shed. During

my visit to the Dry Port in December last, I saw this situation

and wrote to the Chairman, CBR about the hazards of goods lying

in the open and urged him to make arrangements for their safety.

Some of gutted goods have been lying in the shed for as long as

1989 and Railways had not detain them. The goods included items

like tyres, plastics and chemicals which had lost their value

with the passage of time.

Asked if the Railways was not the custodian of the goods,

the Chairman said "for how long" and retorted if the Railways

would be held responsible till eternity.

He said the Railways has extended the facility of a

warehouse to importers and to facilitate Customs to perform their

job of collecting duties and taxes. About 80 percent of goods are

lifted within the four days of arrival of consignments. The

Railways charges no demurrage for the first seven days. However

some of the consignments are not cleared by Customs because of

complications in documents or goods being contraband. But this

all the Customs' job. Railways, being a carrier of goods only, is

not at all interested in holding goods for long at the Dry Port. It can feel happy to hand them over to claimants the moment they

are unloaded. But it is the requirement of Customs to hold them

as long as custom formalities are not over. The moment Customs

clears a consignment, the Railways allows it exit after nominal

rental charges for using its space at the Dry Port.

Sabotage activity

Meanwhile, the parliamentary secretary for

railways, Khalid Ghurki, on Wednesday said that the Monday fire in a shed at Lahore Dry Port could be result of sabotage activity.

He said that he would supervise the

inquiry committee appointed to probe causes of the fire and said

whatever is the outcome would be made public.

At the moment, he said he could not say anything more.-APP