ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has imposed a major penalty of dismissal from services on three Customs inspectors of Islamabad, who fraudulently cleared high-value imported items (mobile phones, wrist watches and cosmetics etc), involving around Rs 7 billion, under cover of helicopter parts.
The FBR has issued three notifications here on Friday to penalize the involved officers in the scam.
According to the FBR’s notifications, the FBR has dismissed from services Aziz-Ur Rehman, Customs Inspector; Usman Ali, Customs Inspector and Sehrish Nazir Customs Inspector.
FBR suffered no loss on account of ‘unlawful clearance’ of goods during import ban?
The charitable foundation was not aware that its name has been fraudulently used to import high-value imported consignments without payment of duties and taxes.
The name of the foundation was misused by the involved officers. The customs clearing agents in connivance of the said customs inspectors committed revenue loss to the tune of around Rs 7 billion to the national exchequer.
The outdated One-Customs clearance system was used to clear the imported consignments that were required to be cleared through the automated WEBOC system.
Details revealed that the disciplinary proceedings were initiated against these Inspectors Customs (BS-16) of Collectorate of Customs, Islamabad on charges of “Inefficiency” & “Misconduct” under Rule-3(a)&(b) of the Government Servants (Efficiency & Discipline) Rules, 1973.
An inquiry committee comprising, of Rizwan Salabat, (PCS/BS-20), the then Additional Collector, Collectorate of Customs, Islamabad and Farheen Zahra, Deputy Collector, Collectorate of Customs, Islamabad was constituted to conduct the inquiry against the accused officer.
Brief facts are that the Directorate of Intelligence & Investigation-Customs, Rawalpindi raided the Air Freight Unit (AFU) of the Collectorate of Customs, Islamabad and seized a consignment consisting of high value items such as smart mobile phones, wrist watches, wrist bands, cosmetics, and other miscellaneous imported goods.
The then Collector of Customs, Islamabad ordered a Fact-Finding Inquiry. The Fact-Finding Report established that apart from the one consignment seized by the Directorate of I&I, there were Eighty (80) other Goods Declarations (GDs) which had already been cleared during the Financial Year 2019-2020 in the name of Agha Khan Foundation and declared as “Helicopter Parts” without payment of duty and taxes. When approached by the Collectorate, the Agha Khan Foundation stated in writing that it had not imported the said consignments and that the Clearing Agent had misused the Foundation’s name.
The Clearing Agent managed to bypass a number of standard operating procedures in clearance of Goods Declarations and had them gated out with connivance of the accused and others without payment of duty and taxes to the tune of Rs 6.797 billion and Rs 152.548 million.
The Adjudicating Authority in this case also observed that the scam could not have occurred without the involvement of Customs officials. Furthermore, Customs Appellate Tribunal Bench-1, Islamabad, vide two separate decisions dated 15-06-2023 has upheld the decision by the Adjudicating Authority.
During the inquiry proceedings the Inquiry Committee observed that Inspectors were posted in different during the currency of the scam, and Goods declarations (GDs) had been marked for examination.
The accused failed to carry out examination of the goods and furthermore failed to ensure or even inquire if the mandatory approval for filing of a Goods Declaration for One Customs was accorded or not. All goods being imported by the Agha Khan Foundation were being cleared through WeBOC - the successor clearing system of One Customs, yet the Inspector cleared the said GDs in “One Customs.”
The accused failed to carry out any of the required procedures under the law, and signed Delivery Orders effectively handing over the goods to the Clearing Agents without verifying the relevant documents to ensure that Customs Clearance had been done as per law. Concludingly, the Inquiry Committee observed that the Charges/Allegations against the accused Inspectors of the Collectorate of Customs, Islamabad, stand proven beyond any iota of doubt.
It was strange that the examiners (inspectors) of goods failed to object as to why the subject consignments were cleared from the One-Customs clearance system while simultaneously the same importer (Agha Khan Foundation) was filing goods declarations under the WEBOC system as normal routine practice.
The inspectors did not verify if the approval for filing goods declarations in One-Customs system has been accorded or not. This was done despite clear instructions from the FBR that approval for filing of GDs in the One-Customs would be accorded by the Collector.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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