Economic Reporter :
The government is losing over Tk 10 crore of revenue due to the negligence of Dhaka Customs House Authority in the Hazrat Shahajalal International Airport as over 2 lakh pieces of memory cards were allegedly lost from the warehouse of the house.
According the NBR sources, the officials of the customs seized a consignment of 210,000 pieces memory cards on the basis of secret information on June 11, 2016 and the market value of the consignment was Tk 6 crore 32 lakh.
After the scrutinizing, the authority confiscated the consignment as per the Import Policy Order 2015-16.
The then commissioner of the house Md Lutfar Rahman also issued show cause notice against Mamun Hawladar, the owner of the memory card, for carrying prohibited goods as per the baggage rules.
Mamun, later, wrote to the Dhaka Customs House that he would not claim ownership of the product as there were no valid documents on the memory card during the trial.
As a confiscated commodity, the customs house later called for open tender but it was postponed due to the unknown reason, insiders said.
The present Commissioner of the house Moazzem Hossain is now trying to unload of this consignment. Referring to the CP of the Commerce Ministry, the commissioner placed a 9-page judgment saying that the stock lot, mentioned in the passenger’s invoice, was exempted from paying the duty.
He ordered to release the goods after paying a total of Tk 31.70 lakh, including a fine of Tk 5 lakh on March 1 this year. But the cards were not found in the warehouse.
Following this, passenger Mamun Hawlader has recently applied to the National Board of NBR alleging that the stock lots confiscated in favor of the state have been stolen and demanded Tk 40 crore as compensation.
He also filed a writ petition in the High Court on Wednesday. The Commerce Ministry, Chairman of the NBR, the Dhaka Customs Commissioner and the Officer of the customs Godown were accused in the writ petition,
Commissioner Moazzem Hossain said, “The import of memory cards is not a banned product, although the product was temporarily confiscated for violating the Baggage Rules.”
About the allegation of Mamun Hawladar, the commissioner said that they were looking in to the matter seriously.
The import of stock lot products is prohibited as per the Import Policy at part 4 of the list of banned products states. The consignment was also mentioned as a stock commodity in the invoice given by the passenger.
