990401

Lahore customs AFU collects Rs 1bn in 9 months

RECORDER REPORT

LAHORE: The Air Freight Unit (AFU) of Lahore Customs has collected Rs 1 billion as customs duty during the first nine months of the financial year 1998-99, while an amount of Rs 238.76 million was also collected as sales tax during the period.

According to an official of AFU, the target assigned during the period was Rs 978.50 million, which has not only been achieved but also surpassed by Rs 21.47 million.

On the other hand, there has been a decrease in the weight of total consignments brought into the country by air, he added.

The total weight of the consignments brought by the air was 3164.65 tonnes, while during the same period of last year, the weight was 4212.66 tonnes, which showed that weight of import cargo has been reduced by 24.87 percent, the official maintained.

The total assessable value of imported goods has been Rs 5896.72 million during the current year, while it was estimated at Rs 4446.98 million during the corresponding period of the last year, another official said.

This clearly showed that during the current year the appraised value has substantially increased thereby automatically causing an increase in revenue, he added.

AFU assistant collector customs said during the first three quarters of the financial year 1998-99, not only import cargo has been reduced by weight but the total number of consignments has also declined.

He said a total number of 165,662 bills of entries were filed during the year.

In the corresponding period of last year 17,981 bills of entries were filed showing a decrease of 1419 entries during this year, he said.

Maximum facilities were also provided at the AFU to the genuine importers as well as express lane facility was also provided, assistant collector said. Most of the "Khepias", who had been bringing all types of commercial consignments under the garb of baggage were now entering the country as genuine imports on which duty and taxes were payable against import cargo, thus leading to an increase in the national exchequer, he added.

At the unaccompanied baggage section, the passengers who used to bring their personal goods, were being provided all types of facilities and same day clearance facility was also provided to them, he said.

During the first three quarters of the year 1998-99, 6587 passengers brought their personal goods and paid Rs 41.7 million as customs duty and Rs 6.58 million as sales tax, while during the same period more than 50 seizure cases were made and goods worth Rs 20 million were taken into official custody, he revealed.

Talking about the clearance of the imported goods, he said that in the past, importers used to postpone the clearance of goods for months but now the system has been streamlined and resultantly most of the import cargo was cleared within the period of one month, while most of the overstayed and confiscated goods were put for auction, which were held frequently.

Long standing arrears of Rs 65.87 million had also, so far, been recovered during the period from January 1998 to March 1999, while during the corresponding period of the last year only Rs 8.51 million were recovered as arrears, he said.