The Chattogram Port, the lifeline of the country’s economy, is space crisis as 120 luxury motor vehicles with rusted engines, broken wheels, damaged batteries, lost keys, covered in fungus and dust remain piled up at the port for a decade, depriving customs of revenue. According to a new report, these vehicles of various renowned makes and models, including Land Rover, Mercedes Benz, BMW, Lexus, Jaguar, Ford and Mitsubishi, were shipped to the port under the ‘Carnet de Passage’ system that allows travellers and tourists to move through countries driving their own vehicles. Vehicles brought under the Carnet system enjoy duty-free privileges and these must be taken back.
To date, the port’s tariff dues on this account stands at Tk 90 crore with Tk 75 lakh per vehicle for storage at the port. On top of that, Tk 250,000 is added to the total every day. Officials concerned said there is no possibility to realise the tariff dues even if these vehicles are sold as 80 per cent of the money from a vehicle auction goes to the state exchequer and the remaining 20 per cent to the port. However, if the vehicles are auctioned off, part of the port will be cleared and that would ease port operations. According to the report, there are seven 4000cc Land Rovers and those are the most expensive ones.
The state of these luxury vehicles came to light after a committee submitted a report recently following an inspection of the vehicles at Chattogram port. The five-member committee was formed following an order of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) to clear off the vehicles, which remain uncollected for a long time. Sources alleged that earlier some of these vehicles were put on auction separately eight to ten times but the customs did not let the vehicles go even after being offered good prices. As an example, a vehicle was shipped by a British-Bangladeshi citizen to the port in 2011 and remained uncollected since then. The vehicle was auctioned four times with the price rising to Tk 47 lakh but it was not sold. We want to say the customs must take initiatives to launch an e-tender programme to speed up the auction procedure. This will make auction easier and attract participation from more bidders. Thus, it would also help reduce the number of undelivered vehicles and other goods at the port.
