LAHORE: Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar rebuffed the FBR authorities on open sale of smuggled goods in major markets while ordered the high-ups to submit comments on a related complaint of green channel smuggling by 11th June 2018.
The tax authorities decided in a meeting held at the FBR House to ensure compliance with the directives of the Chief Justice of Supreme Court during the hearing proceedings of suo motu case #11/2018 on 05.06.2018. The letter No. C No. 15(3) E&C/2018/71701 was issued by Muhammad Saleem Memon, Secretary Enforcement and Coordination to DG I&I and Chief Collector North on 6 June, 2018 in this regard.
In line with the directions of the Supreme Court, the FBR held a detailed meeting to finalize practical steps to control the menace of smuggling in the said areas without delay. During the meeting, the chairman FBR informed the members that the Chief Justice of Pakistan communicated his displeasure on the open sale of smuggled goods across the country, especially in Hayatabad Karkhano Market Peshawar, Blue Area Islamabad, Rawalpindi Bara Market and other main markets in various major cities of the country. The Chief Justice warned if the menace of smuggling was not checked, it could lead to destruction of the indigenous manufacturing industry and other allied sectors.
The FBR had decided that Member Customs would immediately initiate steps to check the menace of smuggling and submit the report of actions taken to the chairman FBR by June 7, 2018 for onward submission to the Supreme Court of Pakistan. The action would be taken by Member Customs.
The CJP has taken notice of smuggling related issues raised and reported extensively by media especially by Customs Today. Customs Today published a series of investigative reports about large scale smuggling of different banned items through green channel with the help of a few corrupt customs officials.
After CJP’s suo moto notice, Pakistan Customs launched anti-smuggling operations across the country and Peshawar Customs Intelligence and Investigation in a crackdown on smuggled goods recovered cloth worth Rs 30 million from Karkhano Market, Peshawar. Similarly, Customs field formations have accelerated anti-smuggling operations in the country.
Earlier, the CJP took notice in case No 21502-P/2018 of a complaint filed against illegal clearances through green channel and ordered report/comments from concerned quarters within 10 days while the court associate sent the order copy to the Chairman NAB for necessary action.
When Customs Today correspondent sought details from Member Customs Zahid Khokhar about the case, he said he did not receive any notice yet.
According to details, the chief justice took notice on a complaint accompanied by an appeal published in Customs Today about Rs 1000 billion mega scam of green channel illegal clearances.
As per application and accompanied appeal filed by Asad Kharal, senior journalist and Chairman Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) Pakistan, a mega scam of green channel smuggling is unearthed at ports of Pakistan:
- Customs Department admits that 46% of clearances happen in green channel where the smugglers are ensured that their goods would not be checked by customs officers at ports.
- Green channel facility is provided exclusively to rich people who have big turnovers so that they can cause bigger revenue losses to the national exchequer and corrupt customs officers can make even bigger money out of it.
- High value goods like mobiles, banned items and health hazardous goods like betel nuts, narcotics substances, cigarettes, liquor and explosives are cleared by a few corrupt customs staff without any checking or examination.
- Millions of Pakistanis are losing health and lives due to smuggling of banned items through green channel
- More than Rs 1000 billion losses incurred due to the green channel mega scam but the customs authorities are not ready to take any action or correct its ways because senior customs officers are huge beneficiaries of the entire scam.
Customs Today is partner of the CIJ Pakistan in all its matters related to customs.
It is worthy to mention here that Customs Today has been reporting on abuse of green channel since past many years. Mega brands like Mobilink and QMobile were reported to be grossly abusing Green Channel facility with connivance of Customs staff. Customs Today exposed mega smuggling scam of Digicom Company (Q-Mobile) as the company cleared more than 750 containers through green channel. In another case, the company did not pay Sales Tax of Rs 772 million on import of total 2,410,560 mobiles.
On 2nd February 2018, Customs Today exposed a smuggling bid of 15,520 liters of dual use precursor acetic anhydride worth around $1.5 million at Port Qasim. The acetic anhydride is a main ingredient for preparing narcotics substance as well as making highly dangerous explosives by the terrorist outfits. Then, Customs Today published several reports about betel nuts smuggling worth billions of rupees through ports at Port Qasim and Appraisement East Collectorate.
These reports led to multiple raids, tens of FIRs and recoveries of illegally cleared goods worth billions of rupees. In fact, in a single raid at a SITE area godown, 600,000 Kgs. of betel nuts worth Rs 1.5 billion were seized. Notwithstanding, these actions were only as token in nature and is a drop in the ocean whereas much more needs to be done. Customs Today also published investigative reports about changing of strategies by green channel smugglers as they started clearing illegal goods through yellow channel & TP.
Millions of Pakistanis pinned high hopes on Chief Justice Mian Saqib and Chairman NAB Justice (retired) Javed Iqbal that they would eradicate corruption mafia from the country especially in Customs Department as green channel smuggling is inflicting heavy losses on the national exchequer. The chief justice and the NAB chairman already took suo moto notices of mega corruption cases in Pakistan and even Nawaz Sharif was disqualified as prime minister in a historic decision announced in the Panama Papers case.