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| Trucks carrying oil and containers at the Pak-Afghan border.—File Photo |
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has decided to revisit the conditions for Afghan Transit Trade (ATT) on the basis of concrete evidence suggesting that the facility was grossly being misused in many ways, official sources told Dawn.
They said since the closure of the route for Nato forces in Afghanistan, there had been instances of Nato supplies reaching the land-locked neighbour in the name of Afghan Transit Trade.
Answering a question, a senior official said there was no immediate timeframe for lifting of embargo on Nato supplies through Chaman and Tourkham borders. “Since the current terms have been violated by Nato, new terms of cooperation will be discussed with the United States after our own internal exercise”, he remarked.
He said the negotiations on carriage will take into account the colossal loss caused to the roads by heavy Nato containers, if and when a decision was taken to remove restriction on the supplies clamped in the aftermath of attack on two military posts in Mohmand Agency.
He revealed that the government under the previous arrangements was getting only Rs410 per truck for handling and loading at Port Qasim Karachi, while the contactors hired by Nato dominated by Afghan cartel end up making huge profits.
Another source said the government was mulling proposal to levy special tax on Nato trucks even before the November 26 incident. He said the Communications Ministry upset by the losses caused to roads and infrastructure was discussing modalities for establishment of designated check-posts at Chaman and Tourkham borders to collect the amount.
Various parliamentary committees in the recent past had expressed their concern over the damage caused to the roads by Nato containers and recommended levy of special tax on NATO containers.
A huge chunk of budget for repair of the roads is spent on account of damage caused by heavy Nato trucks for about a decade. Before the Nato supply was halted, hundreds of trucks used to cross Tourkham and Chaman borders every day.
About the Afghan Transit Trade, an official said it had remained controversial from the very beginning. “It has a history of damaging interests of the local industry on one hand and discouraging legal imports on the other”.
He pointed out that the production of televisions in Pakistan quadrupled in four years after inclusion of the item in the negative list for Afghan transit trade in 1996.
Pakistan had signed an agreement with Afghanistan in 1965 to facilitate foreign trade of its land-locked neighbour. The agreement has been massively abused by the unscrupulous
elements to import products way above their actual demand in Afghanistan meant only to push back the products into Pakistan.
The agreement resulted in massive smuggling of black tea, tyres, electronic goods, kitchen items, home appliances and other such goods into Pakistan. Every body knows that Afghans prefer green tea, but black tea in huge quantity was imported only to make money by misusing the facility.
In short, the ATT resulted in a quasi-legal smuggling in many ways. The majority of the imported products booked for Afghanistan just went through the motions never to reach Afghanistan after being rerouted in the border areas of the now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. A big quantity also finds its way back into the country flooding the markets in the major urban
centres of the country with the goods imported under the ATT.
With each passing year the abuse increased, pushing products into the local markets which not only undermined the local manufacturing but also the legal imports. While the loss caused to the manufacturing sector forced many foreign investors to close down operations in the country, it also discouraged the legal imports of many items particularly tyres and
spices, due to in-competitive prices. This, in turn, deprived the government of substantial loss in terms of investment, corporate taxes and duties.
The agreement was abused to such an extent that an otherwise necessary service extended to the land-locked country turned it into the major cause for smuggling into Pakistan. It was all the more troubling as it was hard to keep track of the movement of imported goods bound for Afghanistan due to rampant corruption and political influence during all stages
of transit from Karachi, the nation’s only port-city.
The strong concerns of the manufacturing sector and the importers worst hit by the trade under the cover of ATT had forced the government time and again to make addition in the prohibitive list.
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