PRIME Minister Shehbaz Sharif, while reiterating the resolve to purge the country of smuggling, directed the authorities concerned on Friday to accelerate the drive against the menace across country. Chairing a meeting on anti-smuggling measures, he paid tribute to Army Chief General Asim Munir over his cooperation with the government in its endeavour against smuggling.
This renewed focus on anti-smuggling campaign augurs well for the economy, which is suffering hugely due to illegal movement of goods. The illicit trade of various goods across Pakistan’s borders with Iran and Afghanistan as well as India remains a persistent issue besides smuggling through sea routes. Smuggled products have infiltrated multiple sectors of the country’s economy, spanning items like cell phones, fuel and everyday necessities like toiletries and tea. This has been happening since decades and the smuggling mafia is so powerful and active that the so-called ‘Barra Markets’ thrive in almost all major cities and towns of the country, making a mockery of the multi-layered institutional mechanism created to tackle the menace.
The magnitude of the illegal activities can be judged by a single incident where the law enforcing agencies raided a godown of smuggled goods in Mastung and confiscated goods worth Rs. 10 billion. Misuse of Afghan Transit Trade and free for all smuggling of Iranian oil and its availability in different parts of the country have been two major challenges. In fact, this is a bleeding wound of the national economy but so far no effective strategy could be formulated to address the challenge mainly because of collusion of those responsible to curb smuggling. In this backdrop, it is encouraging that an investigation committee has identified elements involved in misuse of Afghan Transit Trade for smuggling and the officers facilitating them.
The Prime Minister was told that a list of smugglers, hoarders and their facilitating officers had been forwarded to the law-enforcement agencies and provincial governments and the PM ordered for removing the identified officers from their posts and initiating disciplinary proceedings against them. There are reasons to believe that if this penal action is taken in a prompt and transparent manner, it would serve as deterrence against future collusion. Apart from this, there is also need to strengthen security for officials concerned, who face retaliatory action from powerful mafia as highlighted by the killing of five officials of the Customs intelligence a few days back in DI Khan.
