In an early meeting, Shoaib Siddiqui, Director General, Sindh Excise and Taxation Department had assured the delegation of All Pakistan Customs Agents Association (APCAA) to move a summary regarding the omission of mandatory NOC for the clearance of imported consignments in coming months.
When contacted, Arshad Jamal, Chairman Supreme Council APCAA said the DG Excise during the meeting had directed its field formation to ensure the availability of excise staff at Customs House branch till bank timings and further confirmed to keep excise counter open on Saturday as well.
Moreover, Arshad said the bank on the request of APCAA had now allocated a separate room and two counters for excise officers at its Customs House branch in order to facilitate taxpayers.
He further said that APCAA delegation in its early meeting briefed the DG that the unnecessary mandatory NOC requirement was creating hurdles in smooth process of consignments clearance as after the commencement of online WEBOC system, all such requirements of other departments adopted in manual system were automatically eliminated and now the customs department was striving to promote paperless environment to maximize revenue collection and facilitation as well.