Bureau Veritas clarifies some points of FE report

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Bureau Veritas (BIVAC) Bangladesh Ltd clarified some points of the report titled "NBR urged to take action against PSI cos" published in the FE on 26th August, 2008.

The clarifications are as follows: The report is incomplete as it did not mention anything about the inspection of these goods that took place in Chittagong Port on Monday, 25th August, 2008 although reports on that inspection appeared in various national dailies blaming the importers concerned.

Two consignments of scrap steel were inspected in Philippines by our company. During the inspections, the goods were loaded and the containers were sealed by us. As per PSI rules, after the sealing of the containers, the containers remain in the custody of the exporter, and it is the exporter's responsibility to hand over the containers to the shipping company. Usually there is a lag of couple of days before the shipping company takes over the containers.

When the goods were inspected in Chittagong on Monday, no seal of our company was found on any of the containers indicating that someone had broken the seal opened the container and changed the goods. We have appointed an America investigation company to investigate the matter. As and when the investigation complete, we shall make the report available to the concerned authority of the government of Bangladesh.

It is curious that the Re-Rolling Mills Association wrote to the NBR (National Board of Revenue) to take action against us without taking the full facts into consideration. For the sake of completeness, we would request you to kindly publish these facts for your readers.

FE's reply: The report was creeded by the news agency UNB. Hence, the FE is not responsible for its contents.