Shakhawat Hossain
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has finally taken the much-awaited move to appoint an international firm to audit the operations of the Pre-Shipment Inspection (PSI) companies, sources said.
It has contracted an international firm to audit the operations of the PSI firms, signalling that the process has been speeded up to execute a two-year old decision.
The recent progress has also been communicated to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that has long been suggesting audit of the PSI operations that involve the country's annual imports worth US$ 15 billion, sources added.
Sources, however, did not disclose the identity of the international audit firm for technical reasons.
Following various allegations of non-compliances such as under and over invoicing and issuance of wrong certificates, the NBR decided about two years back to appoint an international firm to audit operations of the PSI firms.
There was little progress until recent months on the issue for various reasons, including resistance from a section of officials in the revenue board.
The NBR has the right to examine the financial and other affairs of the PSI companies as per deals signed with the PSIs in 2005, a board official said.
Cotecna, SGS, Bureau Veritas and Intertek Testing Service are the PSI companies appointed to give clean report of finding (CRF) and helping the custom department for smooth import operations until 2008.
The board has incurred loss of substantial amount of revenue due to alleged under and over invoicing and the issuance of wrong certificates.
NBR appoints int'l firm to audit PSI operations
FE Team | Published: November 04, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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