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Misuse of Bonded Warehouse Facility

Tk 240cr revenue loss in 11 months

Customs cancels over 300 licences in 2004-05

Jasim Uddin Khan
A section of dishonest businessmen allegedly abused the bonded warehouse facility in readymade garment and backward linkage industries, causing the government a revenue loss of about Tk 240 crore this fiscal year.
After detecting the wholesale misuse and irregularities, the Customs Bond Commissionerate
cancelled arid suspended more tlian 300 bond licences in the first 11 months of 2004-05, official sources said.
A total of 1,274 bond licences have been cancelled and suspended since 2000 for the fraudulent practice, Customs sources said. Businessmen however said Customs officials are also involved in the irregularities.
"Some businessmen are misus-
ing the bonded warehouse facility by selling the imported duty-free raw materials and finished goods in the local market," a high official of the commissionerate told The Daily Star, requestinganonythity.
He said the licence holders sometimes use fake addresses to escape the monitoring mechanism of the Customsauthorities.
Also, the dishonest businessmen do not maintain appropriate statistics of their export and import activities to abuse the facility, the official added.
Around 90 percent of the misuse took place in the readymade garment sector and the remaining 10 percent in the backward linkage industries.
Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) sources said the association itself is now monitoring the use of bond facilities. But they denied the involvement of the BGMEA members in the abuse.
"No BGMEA member can abuse the facility due to constant and automated monitoring and observation by the association," a BGMEA leader claimed.
Another businessman said the misuse of bond facilities in connivance with some government officials is rampant and it poses a threat to the genuine exporters.
He said the authorities have cancelled and suspended licences of the dishonest businessmen but the corrupt customs officials have gone unpunished as no departmental action has been taken against them.
The bond commissionerate recently initiated a move to stop the fraudulent activities and requested the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Department to deploy their officials to check the misuse of bond facility.
In order to stop the malpractice, the commissionerate has planned to introduce several new requirements for taking a bond licence from the 2005-06 fiscal year.
The businessmen applying for bond licence will have to inform the commissionerate about their production capacity and manpower, utility service status and potential market.
The commissionerate will make it mandatory for the licence seekers to place catalogues and detailed description of machines to be imported.
The government set up the commissionerate to issue the licence and monitor bonded warehouse facility in 2000 to the cent percent export oriented industries, especially the readymade garment and its backward linkage industries.
The commissionerate has already issued 4,373 licences.
A National Board of Revenue official said the government earned Tk 403 crore in revenue through the customs bond commissionerate in the current fiscal.