Forgery rampant for NBR’s weak scanning mechanisms at Ctg port

Infographic: TBS

Cashing in on shortcomings of the revenue authorities' scanning mechanisms at Chattogram port, a racket gets imported goods repeatedly released through forgery, depriving the government of a huge amount of revenue every year.

According to the rules, goods-laden containers are scanned during their release and the reports are submitted to designated customs officials at port gates.

As the server of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) is not connected to port scanners, the customs officials allow the goods to be released after checking them manually.

Taking this advantage, fraudsters often get goods released by making false scanning reports, according to stakeholders.  

The Chattogram customs authorities say that the National Board of Revenue (NBR) is unable to implement the Integration of Scan Image module as most of the scanning machines at the port gates are more than 13 years old.  

In the last such attempt, a racket got two liquor consignments released from the port on 22 July by declaring the consignments as machinery and bobbins imported under the bond facility. It tried to evade the duty of Tk24.7 crore.

The case of forgery came to the fore after the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) seized vehicles carrying the consignments in Sonargaon, Narayanganj.  

Following the incident, customs recovered three more consignments of liquor at the port and said the racket was trying to get these consignments released by forging the scanning report. It tried to evade revenue of Tk57.83 crore in a total of five consignments.

Khairul Alam Sujan, vice-president of the Bangladesh Freight Forwarders Association, said a racket is taking advantage of the lack of connectivity of scanning reports with the customs server.

"These incidents are happening more in shipments of imported goods coming under the bond facility," he added.

He said that it will not be possible to prevent fraud until scanning machines are installed at all the port gates and they are not connected to NBR's server.

Port users say that the distance between the scanning machine and the port gate is very close. But there is no chance to check whether the scanning report is fake at the gate. Recently, the incident of the recovery of liquor has come to everyone's attention, but there are no statistics on how many consignments have been released in this way by showing fake reports.

Shamimul Islam, a programmer of the Chattogram Customs House, said that two machines installed in 2020 are suitable for integration with the scanning report, but the implementation of this initiative is not possible as the others are old.

The customs house has already informed the revenue board about this matter and the integration will be implemented by adding new scanning machines at the port gates.

According to the Chattogram Customs House data, containers and cargo vehicles move through 12 gates of the port. But there are seven scanning machines at six of the gates. Of these, the last two machines were installed in February 2020.

The remaining five machines are 13 years old and were installed in 2009 under the Chattogram Port Trade Facilitation scheme as part of anti-smuggling and global policy obligations.

Customs said old machines are even unable to produce container scanning reports clearly.

In fiscal 2021-22, the Chattogram port handled 32.55 lakh twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) containers, which is 98% of the country's total containers transported through seaports.

Mahbubul Alam, president of the Chattogram Chamber of Commerce and Industries and the Chattogram Port Users' Forum, said that if the NBR software is connected to the scanning machines at the port, there will be no chance of forgery.

"Every year, the scope of import and export trade is increasing through the port. So the matter should be considered seriously and the scanning reports should be connected to the server as soon as possible," he added.

The port authorities said that the purchase of two more scanners is under the tender process. Recently, Chattogram Port Authority Secretary Md Omar Farooq said that two scanners will be added soon.

During a visit to the New Mooring Container Terminal at the port last month, State Minister for Shipping Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury said that scanning machines will be installed at all gates immediately.