Modern scanners for the ports
Mahmud Rashid | Wednesday, 2 July 2008
THE two seaports of the country at Chittagong and Khulna urgently need modern scanners. This requirement is much more pressing for the Chittagong port that handles the lion's share of the country's sea-borne external trade. The functions of the ports are no more limited to export and import operations in the conventional sense. To these have been added security concerns such as checking containers and other forms of cargoes to ascertain whether they contain only commercial goods as indicated in their invoices or contrabands including arms and ammunition meant for underspirable activities. Both the ports need scanners for the task.
The manual scanning is both time consuming and could leave flaws in many cases. The customs now, as it may be, check a few samples in a container and if they match the declaration of goods in the invoice, clear all of it. But such partial checking could leave goods undetected. Some importers don't declare the actual imported products, to pay lower duties. The products carrying less duties may be cleverly put, let us say, on top of the container to camouflage the products with higher duty. In collusion with the customs people, they can manage to get inspected only samples of the products at the top, in order to escape payment duty on the high value goods at the bottom. This crime not only aids undue profiteering but also encourages retention of unauthorised foreign currency abroad.
Sometimes, goods in this manner are cleared even without an understanding with the customs administration. This is possible because of the prevailing procedure of examining only a part of a consignment, as manual inspection of the entire consignment can be time consuming and taxing on the part of the inspectors. The prevalent system is not only facilitating loss of revenue and foreign currency but also poses security dangers. It can be exploited easily to bring in clandestine arms, ammunition and explosives for undesirable activities. In the backdrop of the heightened security threat looming over the country, the ports need modern scanning devices.
Suitable scanning devices need to be installed also at the land-ports and in the inland container depots (ICDs) for the same reasons. The government has, reportedly, drawn no response to its request to the US government for financial assistance and technical support for a project to set up the scanning devices. But that should not mean that much time can be wasted in implementing the project, which is important from the national perspective.
Government must broad-base its search for funds for the project by extending requests to other donors for assistance. It should go ahead to fund the project from its own resources by dropping projects considered less significant. It should be worthwhile in the longer run to install these devices as they would check falsified import activities and currency transfer, increase the revenue earnings of the government and help the security operations by eliminating the possibility of smuggling arms into the country.
The manual scanning is both time consuming and could leave flaws in many cases. The customs now, as it may be, check a few samples in a container and if they match the declaration of goods in the invoice, clear all of it. But such partial checking could leave goods undetected. Some importers don't declare the actual imported products, to pay lower duties. The products carrying less duties may be cleverly put, let us say, on top of the container to camouflage the products with higher duty. In collusion with the customs people, they can manage to get inspected only samples of the products at the top, in order to escape payment duty on the high value goods at the bottom. This crime not only aids undue profiteering but also encourages retention of unauthorised foreign currency abroad.
Sometimes, goods in this manner are cleared even without an understanding with the customs administration. This is possible because of the prevailing procedure of examining only a part of a consignment, as manual inspection of the entire consignment can be time consuming and taxing on the part of the inspectors. The prevalent system is not only facilitating loss of revenue and foreign currency but also poses security dangers. It can be exploited easily to bring in clandestine arms, ammunition and explosives for undesirable activities. In the backdrop of the heightened security threat looming over the country, the ports need modern scanning devices.
Suitable scanning devices need to be installed also at the land-ports and in the inland container depots (ICDs) for the same reasons. The government has, reportedly, drawn no response to its request to the US government for financial assistance and technical support for a project to set up the scanning devices. But that should not mean that much time can be wasted in implementing the project, which is important from the national perspective.
Government must broad-base its search for funds for the project by extending requests to other donors for assistance. It should go ahead to fund the project from its own resources by dropping projects considered less significant. It should be worthwhile in the longer run to install these devices as they would check falsified import activities and currency transfer, increase the revenue earnings of the government and help the security operations by eliminating the possibility of smuggling arms into the country.