Customs digitising import transactions to check money laundering

KARACHI: Pakistan Customs has initiated digitising all the import transactions to check money laundering and under-invoicing and to help the central bank in improving the forex management, an official said on Friday.

“Now, an import-form i.e. I-Form will be mandatory for all the imports. It will enable real-time recording of the transaction between the importer and exporter,” the official told The News.

Currently, imports and their subsequent Customs clearance are undertaken in a very un-organised manner and authorities have to rely on the particulars submitted by the importers. “This opens the doors for serious frauds, such as under-invoicing, fake invoices, and mis-declaration,” the official said.

The official said flow of outward remittances is a major issue and the authorities are unable to track most of the outward remittances made by the importers.

So far the central bank and Customs can only record the transactions made through letter of credit (LC) but imports on advance payments as well as deferred payments are not tracked.

“A module is being developed for web-based customs clearing system (WeBOC), which would be implemented into the system within one and a half month,” the WeBOC official said.

Under-invoicing is another serious issue and the government is deprived of significant revenue every year. 

The official said a lot of imports are cleared on under-declared values, but with the I-Form module, Customs will have the actual transaction value on the screen and importers will not be able to under-declare the values of their consignments.

The official said the project will also help central bank in its forex management exercise as, “the regulator will know authentic demand of dollars by importers in a given period of time, which would help central bank in policy making for the next such period.”

“This will also facilitate importers. The entire system is web-based and the importers will be able to apply for I-Form with their respective bank online and upload the same in WebOC online,” the official added.

The official said no amendment or addition will be required to be incorporated in rules and laws. However, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) will need to issue a circular, advising all the banks to make arrangements to facilitate the implementation of I-Form module.

In October 2015, the SBP and the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) signed a memorandum of understanding to digitise imports and exports. 

In the first phase, issuance and real time verification of Form-E (export form) was implemented to track export transactions. Now, import transactions are being documented in the second phase.