At present, appraisement group deals with specific items for the assessment of duties/taxes and clearance of imported consignments. During the quarterly conference of customs collectors held on Wednesday, the Secretary General, Revenue Division/Chairman, CBR Abdullah Yusuf, decided to do away with the centuries-old system of 'Appraisement Group'. The process of abolition will start from August 15 and continued till the end of September, 2006.
Under the new system, instead of assigning specific item, the appraisers would be given assessment task of randomly selected commodities, electronically, under 'One Customs'.
The conference unanimously opined that the new system would wipe out corruption from the customs department. While reviewing the performance of customs department regarding duty collection during 2005-06, it was noticed that net collection of customs duty was Rs 135 billion as compared to Rs 102.3 billion in 2004-05, showing a growth of 20 percent. The major revenue spinners included vehicles Rs 37.7 billion; edible oils Rs 16 billion; POL Rs 15 billion; machinery Rs 12 billion; iron and steel Rs 7 billion; and organic chemicals Rs 3.6 billion.
The conference was informed that on import of vehicles under different schemes ie transfer of residence (TR), personal baggage, gift and others the total customs duty collection was Rs 12 billion in 2005-06 against Rs 4.7 billion in 2004-05, reflecting an increase of Rs 7.3 billion.
While examining recovery of outstanding customs arrears, the chairman noticed that the pace was very slow, and advised the collectors to accelerate efforts and monitor monthly performance. The facilitation of passengers at the airports was also reviewed in the conference with the pledge to remove bottlenecks.
A comprehensive strategy was evolved to achieve the revenue targets for the current financial year, devising mechanism to constantly check on under-invoicing, effectively monitor assessments, vigorously recover outstanding arrears and quickly dispose goods ripe for auction etc.
Customs Collectors, in their presentations, highlighted the performance of their Collectorates. Project Director, CARE and PACCS, in his presentation, gave briefing on the share of business being dealt by Model Customs Collectorate, performance and achievements, the functionalities covered under PACCS, the role out plan and acknowledgement of the system at various national and international fora.
He said that Model Customs Collectorate is processing 27 percent of import and 32 percent of export consignments arriving at or going from Karachi port. He said that through business process re-engineering and introduction of PACCS, the customs processing time for imports through KICT has been reduced from seven days to less than four hours and dwell time reduced to less than 5 days. The cast of doing business has been reduced by expeditious clearance and corruption free environment.
He said that CARE will be replicated to PICT and QICT by September 30, 2006. The PACCS will start accepting carrier declaration electronically for both foregoing terminals and transit from August 14. The transhipment trade will be handled through the PACCS clearing such consignments within seconds.
The Project Director also explained that PACCS is not only gaining popularity within the country but its efficiency and effectiveness has also been acknowledged by international fora. He displayed a number of slides on this topic.
Chairman, CBR appreciating the PACCS said that all officers and staff must get training to operate the system effectively.