Appointment of PSI audit agency under processing
Sunday, 19 October 2008
S M Jahangir
The process of appointing a pre-shipment inspection (PSI) audit agency to help prevent the government's huge revenue leakage is in progress as a technical committee has found a single company's offer to this effect 'responsive', official sources said.
"An evaluation committee under the National Board of Revenue (NBR) has selected a US firm as qualified bidder for appointment as a pre-shipment inspection (PSI) audit agency," a senior official of NBR said.
The official also said both technical and financial offers of the globally reputed US-based National Marine Consultants inc. (NMCI) have been found responsive.
The Proposal Evaluation Committee (PEC), which was formed earlier by the NBR, has already sent its evaluation report to the NBR authority for carrying out the next course of action, the official added.
Earlier, the lone firm had submitted its expression of interest (EoI) to the NBR, as sought by the revenue authorities for appointment of a PSI audit agency, the official mentioned.
After the offer being approved by the NBR Chairman Muhammad Abdul Mazid, it will later be sent to the finance ministry for seeking its nod, another NBR official said, adding if approved, the offer will be placed before the council of advisers' on public purchase for final selection.
According to the NBR officials, the government wants to complete the process of appointment a PSI audit agency within the shortest possible time as it has already given appointment of four PSI agencies for running their operations from early this month.
The cabinet committee on public purchase recently accepted the proposals for appointing the four PSI companies - SGS (Bangladesh) Limited, Bureau Veritas BIVAC (Bangladesh) Limited, Intertek Testing (ITS) Limited and a new Japan-based company Omic - for the period up to December 2009, sources said.
The government has initiated the move to appoint an internationally-reputed audit agency to detect irregularities of PSI companies to check its revenue leakage, caused by alleged regularities of the PSI agencies through false declaration and under-invoicing of imported goods, the sources said.
Official sources said, the main jobs of the proposed PSI audit agency will be to conduct post clearance audit and verify a maximum 20 per cent of inspection reports submitted by the PSI firms per month.
Besides, the audit agency will investigate the country of origin of the imported goods if necessary to ascertain the authenticity of the PSI reports.
The government introduced the PSI system from 1999 to inspect imported goods before their shipment to Bangladesh with a view to preventing the leakage of customs duties, they mentioned.
But since then, PSI companies' operation has become controversial, with some importers and officials accusing the firms of wrong HS code classification, under-valuation and mis-declaration of imported goods.
Early this year, the NBR cancelled agreement with a Switzerland-based PSI company after detecting irregularities in valuation of imported luxury cars.
Meanwhile, the government has already said the existing PSI system would be abolished after the expiry of their contracts in December 2009, before which the customs department would be readied to conduct inspection.
The process of appointing a pre-shipment inspection (PSI) audit agency to help prevent the government's huge revenue leakage is in progress as a technical committee has found a single company's offer to this effect 'responsive', official sources said.
"An evaluation committee under the National Board of Revenue (NBR) has selected a US firm as qualified bidder for appointment as a pre-shipment inspection (PSI) audit agency," a senior official of NBR said.
The official also said both technical and financial offers of the globally reputed US-based National Marine Consultants inc. (NMCI) have been found responsive.
The Proposal Evaluation Committee (PEC), which was formed earlier by the NBR, has already sent its evaluation report to the NBR authority for carrying out the next course of action, the official added.
Earlier, the lone firm had submitted its expression of interest (EoI) to the NBR, as sought by the revenue authorities for appointment of a PSI audit agency, the official mentioned.
After the offer being approved by the NBR Chairman Muhammad Abdul Mazid, it will later be sent to the finance ministry for seeking its nod, another NBR official said, adding if approved, the offer will be placed before the council of advisers' on public purchase for final selection.
According to the NBR officials, the government wants to complete the process of appointment a PSI audit agency within the shortest possible time as it has already given appointment of four PSI agencies for running their operations from early this month.
The cabinet committee on public purchase recently accepted the proposals for appointing the four PSI companies - SGS (Bangladesh) Limited, Bureau Veritas BIVAC (Bangladesh) Limited, Intertek Testing (ITS) Limited and a new Japan-based company Omic - for the period up to December 2009, sources said.
The government has initiated the move to appoint an internationally-reputed audit agency to detect irregularities of PSI companies to check its revenue leakage, caused by alleged regularities of the PSI agencies through false declaration and under-invoicing of imported goods, the sources said.
Official sources said, the main jobs of the proposed PSI audit agency will be to conduct post clearance audit and verify a maximum 20 per cent of inspection reports submitted by the PSI firms per month.
Besides, the audit agency will investigate the country of origin of the imported goods if necessary to ascertain the authenticity of the PSI reports.
The government introduced the PSI system from 1999 to inspect imported goods before their shipment to Bangladesh with a view to preventing the leakage of customs duties, they mentioned.
But since then, PSI companies' operation has become controversial, with some importers and officials accusing the firms of wrong HS code classification, under-valuation and mis-declaration of imported goods.
Early this year, the NBR cancelled agreement with a Switzerland-based PSI company after detecting irregularities in valuation of imported luxury cars.
Meanwhile, the government has already said the existing PSI system would be abolished after the expiry of their contracts in December 2009, before which the customs department would be readied to conduct inspection.