Customs PCA conducts 211 audits in 2021-22

LAHORE:Directorate of Customs Post Clearance Audit (Central) Lahore has conducted 211 audits during the Financial Year 2021-22 in which total amount of Rs4451 million has been detected.

It is worth mentioning that Rs1259.5 million have been recovered due to diligent efforts of Post Clearance Audit (Central) Lahore team. Out of 211 audit observations, 152 contravention cases were framed and sent to Adjudication Collectorate.

The comparative analysis of Financial Year 2021-22 with Financial Year 2020-21 showed that there is increase of over 242 percent in amount detected and increase of over 391 percent in amount recovered. The data pertaining to fourth quarter of Financial Year 2021-22 elaborated that PCA (Central) made the highest detection of Rs1018 million and recovery of Rs454 million as compared to detected amount of Rs21 million and recovery of Rs2 million of PCA (North) and detected amount of Rs417 million and recovery of Rs22 million of PCA (South).

The audits conducted by the Directorate of PCA Central Lahore are primarily transaction audits, sector audit and entity audits. The PCA Central focused primarily on textiles, electronic goods manufactures and automobiles sectors. As these are the largest importers in the region and as informed by the sources, numerous discrepancies have been observed in their goods declaration.

Naureen Ahmad Tarar, Director, Directorate of Custom Clearance Audit (Central) Lahore, said that the department observed transaction, value classification, sector audit and DTL etc of the company that imported material.

“PCA has an important role to play in the current scenario of automated clearances through WeBOC since it enables customs controls while allowing for immediate expedited release of goods or at least reduction of release times”, she observed. The PCA is an important component of the Pakistan Customs’ risk management strategy. The PCA covers all custom regimes including duty free zones, temporary import, DTRE, public/private warehousing, baggage, end use tariff items etc.

Naureen said, some time ago, PCA asked for internal records of cases from concerned companies. She added that it is information based too. Usually, the companies seemed reluctant to provide information asked by PCA and they used delaying tactics. PCA has a shortage of staff, despite that drastic difference was detected in consumption of imported goods.