Al Amin :
The World Ye Dress Pants Ltd, a Chinese ownership apparel company, has been accused of evading duties worth around Tk 684 crore by misusing bonded warehouse license.
The Chattogram Customs Bond Commissionerate issued six show-cause notices to the Chattogram based apparel company and also filed six separate cases against it recently.
Of the evaded amount, the company evades duty worth over Tk 555.28 crore by using fake EXP (Bill of Export), Tk 5.35 crore through illegal removal of goods, Tk 26 lakh through illegal removal of imported cars, Tk 7.39 crore as the company did not return back value of the exported goods, Tk 8.64 crore by removing imported machineries illegally and Tk 106.75 crore through illegal import of goods, according to the notices.
The company, however, termed the allegations as incorrect and mistake of software as well.
The World Ye Dress Pants Ltd was set up jointly by Bangladesh, USA and China as ‘A’ category company. Later, it turned into ‘B’ category due to the change of ownership.
It received permanent bonded warehouse license from the commissionerate in 2004. Since then, the company did not submit its annual audit reports and did not co-operate the commissionerate in this regard, the customs documents said.
In addition, the company’s lien banks have not sent any export-import information, despite several requests for it.
Even the company has not taken final approval for shifting to KEPZ or not established as similar company in the KEPZ, it said.
Besides, the company shifted some 798 sets of capital machineries without any approval of the concern authorities, the documents said.
According to the papers, the company removed goods from its warehouse by using some 381 fake EXPs and evaded duty worth over Tk 555.28 crore.
On the other hand, the company evades duty worth over Tk 106.75 crore
through collecting goods by importing in illegal way, it said.
In a statement under signed by Sanjit Barua, Head of Accounts and Finance of the company, however, said that it had decided to reduce its activities in Chattogram Export Processing Zone (CEPZ) due to the compliance complexity and shifted to Karnafuli Export Processing Zone (KEPZ) in 2015.
And with the approval of the concern authorities, the company removed 304 sets of capital machineries and other raw materials from the CEPZ to the KEPZ. But the customs officials counted it as illegal removal of goods, it said.
Besides, the customs officials have mentioned the names of the lien banks the company in the documents, which are not correct as its lien banks are HSBC and State Bank of India, the statement said.
So, the documents of the Customs Bond Commissionerate are incorrect and such actions will tarnish the image of the country’s apparel sector, it added.
NBR officials said the claim papers have been made in presence of the officials of the company and it has been asked to place explanation, if has proper documents.
Otherwise, it bonded license will be suspended and other legal action will be taken, they said.
