Pakistan Customs has failed miserably to meet its revenue target for the first quarter of the current fiscal year.
Sources told ProPakistani that the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has been able to collect Rs. 229 billion in customs duties in the first quarter against the target of Rs. 252 billion.
Though FBR has surpassed the overall revenue target of the quarter by collecting Rs. 1,635 billion against the target of Rs. 1,609 billion, it is the enhanced collection of direct taxes which has helped customs high-ups in FBR save face and avoid serious embarrassment.
Sources disclosed that the new economic team of the government was not happy with the customs team due to the shortfall as normally customs had been easily meeting the revenue targets in the past which are meager as compared with those for the income tax collection.
The present shortfall in customs duty collection assumes added significance given the fact that customs formations across the country, through revenue as well as non-revenue administrative measures, had collected Rs. 1,010.7 billion in duties during the fiscal year 2021-22 despite consistently reduced tariff rates of custom duties. This collection was Rs. 262.3 billion higher than the amount collected in the previous fiscal year.
Sources say that there is a crisis of governance in FBR. The customs side of FBR is practically outside the effective control of the FBR Chairman given the chairman’s mild administration style and his income tax background.
Sources claimed that the chairman did not seem to know the nature of customs revenue leakages which are traditional and proprietary money-making secrets on the customs side of FBR.
Besides a shortfall in custom duty collection, the high-ups of customs have started transferring and sidelining the senior grade 21 chief collectors whose formations had performed exceptionally by achieving the revenue targets in the past.
It is worth mentioning that, despite exceeding their revenue targets, the chief collector appraisement South Karachi and chief collector Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were removed and replaced with junior grade 20 officers in their pay scale.
These junior grade 20 officers were elevated and preferred, ignoring numerous senior grade 21 officers.
The chief collector of Balochistan and the chief collector north were also prematurely removed.
Moreover, sources revealed that some of the customs officers carrying dubious reputations and track records have been posted at lucrative yet sensitive revenue positions.
In some cases, the customs high-ups in FBR have chosen to continue allegedly corrupt officers in their present positions in violation of FBR’s one-year tenure policy.
In other cases, the customs officers who found low money-making potential in their new placements have been again reshuffled to more lucrative and higher money-making positions within a short period.
Besides this unusual quantity and quality of administrative shake-up on the customs side of FBR, another interesting manifestation of the crisis of governance in FBR caught the public eye when in the recent past a customs high-up visited Lahore customs.
Sources said that instead of focusing his entire time and effort on helping build revenue collection in Lahore customs, that senior custom official called the medal-winning weightlifter in the custom house, held a big gathering for him with public money and decorated him with customs badges and uniform under the authority of law which does not exist.
Given this style and manner of administration on the custom side of FBR, a shortfall in custom duty collection was a forgone conclusion.
Sources added that more revenue disasters may be waiting in line as a consequence of the ulterior motives which are alleged to have driven and determined the massive customs officers’ reshuffles in FBR in the recent past.
Source: Pro Pakistan