Minister hopes smuggling will be eliminated

LAHORE: Minister of State for Revenue Hammad Azhar on Saturday said that smuggling is a menace for businesses and vowed to make Pakistan a smuggling-free country in near future.

The minister expressed these views in a ceremony held at Wagah Border Customs Office in connection with the International Customs Day.

The minister said that smuggling was a disease for businesses and, as being a part of business family, he had witnessed how smuggled good destroyed different businesses and created unemployment for thousands of people. He said that mobile smuggling was causing a loss of Rs50 billion to national kitty and effective measures were required to curb the mobile smuggling.

Fencing of Pak-Iran and Pak-Afghan borders by the Pakistan military and upgrade of the anti-smuggling force will eliminate smuggling, he added.

He said that he and his team would strive to make Pakistan a smuggling free country in near future. He said an integrated system based on reformed customs intelligence was the need of the hour. He said the prevailing system of customs was satisfactory but it could function more properly after some upgrades. He had learnt that at the Afghan border, a single vehicle of customs patrolled in 100 mile radius. “I have shared this situation with Prime Minister of Pakistan who has assured me of increasing the customs staff on borders, and the recruitments to the force will be made on merit,” the minister said.

He said that the Customs Department was the key to implementation of ease of doing business agenda. The government has focused establishment of one national window for local and international business people, he said.

To a query relating to the next visit of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to Pakistan, the minister hoped that the FATF would remove Pakistan from the grey list as the government and the departments concerned were working hard to fulfil the FATF requirements.

Chief Collector Customs (Central) Zeba Hai Azhar said that Customs revenues had increased more than 34 percent as compared to the previous fiscal year. She appreciated the Customs staff of the central region for their performance and later distributed certificates among the business community and Customs officials.

At the event more than 6,000 bottles of illegally smuggled liquor and other contraband were destroyed in the presence of Customs officials and journalists.