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  • News Desk
  • Jul 19th, 2018
  • Comments Off on ’80 percent of pests, viruses coming under import consignments’
Dr Waseem Ahmad, Food Security Commissioner in Department of Plant Protection (DPP) on Wednesday said that 80 percent of pests, viruses, diseases, etc are coming from other countries under import consignments. Speaking in a FPCCI standing committee meeting on customs at Federation House, he said that following high ratio of pests, viruses, diseases etc, it has been decided in ECC meeting to designate only five entry points -Chaman, Taftan, Sust, Torkham and Wagha for imports.

He said that DPP was frontline security to avoid importing pests, viruses, diseases, etc from other country. "Although DPP has only 18 officers across the country, we are striving to ensure bio-security in the country hence no consignment is allowed clearance without due procedures," he maintained.

He said that the trade faced delays in some cases due to storage of staff hence business community instead of complaints should come forward and support DPP in this Herculean task.

Meanwhile, Arshad Jamal, chairman FPCCI standing committee on customs said that DPP was not working as organisation as no Director General was appointed in the department for years, which provided lucrative opportunity to the staff for minting money.

Arshad complained that DPP staff did not allow clearance of any consignment without speed money and urged Food Security Commissioner to take appropriate measures to facilitate the trade. Later, Dr Waseem has announced to appoint Muhammad Tariq Khan, Director Technical as focal person and requested Arshad Jamal to constitute a committee for speedy dispute resolution.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2018


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