Revenue authority to set up

KARACHI: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has decided to monitor transportation of Afghan transit trade and transshipment through a dedicated central control room, as well as from the regional monitoring cells, sources said on Monday.
The decision of safe transportation has been taken due to recent incidents of cargo theft from the port and during the movement of cargo within the country or to Afghanistan.
Recently, a consignment of retro cargo containing hazardous waste of NATO/ISAF reached Germany that was cleared by the MCC Port Muhammad Qasim without the actual description of goods. The FBR is facing problems in fixing the responsibility, as the collectorate cleared the consignment after complete satisfaction of true declaration.
The sources said the plan was prepared to implement such monitoring two years ago, but due to reasons one or the other no mechanism was developed and miscreant took advantage of this serious flaw.
In order to implement central and regional level monitoring, the revenue authority has invited expressions of interest to enhance the project to cover the entire spectrum of bonded cargo transportation, but not limited to Afghan forward and retro cargo, inter-port movement, transshipment to and from dry ports and transit cargo, from the Customs point of entry to the Customs point of exit, maintaining en route integrity of cargo on real-time basis.
The FBR said implementing agencies of project would be the revenue authority and the tracking company and, at the same time, both would be partner of the project.
It also said: “Investment to be made by the service provider and cost to be borne by bonded carrier and owners of cargo.”
Under the new tracking mechanism, the FBR would be able to have monitoring on the basis of GSM / GPRS/ Satellite communication or other modern technology on real-time basis.
The sources said a central control room and regional monitoring rooms would be set up in the Model Customs Collectorate.
As per the documents, to operate the system, the contracted company would arrange comprehensive technical and operational training for the Customs and IT staff and carry out quarterly appraisal review of the efficiency and functioning of the system through the FBR.
The FBR will have propriety ownership of the data developed by the selected company and the system forensic audit. The selected company will ensure the FBR of a back-up disaster / business recovery and business continuation system.
As per the Tracking and Monitoring of Cargo Rules, 2012, the selected company would provide the services, including: monitoring and tracking of vehicles and containers carrying the cargo mentioned in these rules from the Customs port of entry to the Customs port of exit on real time basis; maintaining en route integrity of cargo by preventing pilferage or theft or losses; access to relevant information through web-portal to all stakeholders as allowed under these rules or by the Customs; flexible solution to cater to any future requirements of tracking under multi-modal and inter-modal transportation environment, eg, with other stakeholders like Pakistan Railways etc; monitoring timely deliveries and reporting on transport efficiencies; managing the system under proper maintenance to ensure smooth operation of the system, compatible with customs procedures and operations so as to ensure running of the system by the Customs also; vehicle immobilisation and securing as and when required, and mandatory in case of geo-fencing violation, pilferage attempts, unauthorised or unusual stoppage; reporting application capable of generating a map of the route followed by the vehicle and container during the journey.
The company will be liable to ensure tracking and monitoring en route to covering location and direction of containers and vehicles; data gathering on real time basis; mounting, securing and ensuring integrity of device during journey by using machine readable serialised seals; data analysis on real time basis; jamming device; and alerts for: unusual stoppages; device / tampering or infringement or intrusion or removal or door opening; and unusual deviation from geo-fencing device mounting or un-mounting.