Pakistan Senate body recommends $500 tax on each NATO container

The Senate Standing Committee for Ports and Shipping on Tuesday recommended Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to set $ 500 tax over each NATO and ISAF containers that land in Karachi Port.
The Committee advised that containers of NATO should be landed at Gwadar Port in place of Karachi so that Gwadar Port starts its operations.
The meeting of Standing Committee was presided by the Senator Gulshan Saeed in Parliament House in which the committee discussed the monetary loss due to the NATO and ISAF to Pakistan and the rush created due to the containers of NATO at Karachi Port.
The Committee informed that 1657 containers are present at Karachi Port Trust (KPT) since November last year, but their owner haven’t come yet. The committee ordered that there should be strict check over the ports so that no unnecessary items arrive to Pakistan.
The Committee recommended that containers of NATO and ISAF should be landed at Gwadar Port so that the Port becomes operational.
Talking about Gwadar Port, the Federal Minister for Ports and Shipping Babar Ghouri was of the view that the NATO containers supply to Afghanistan is very complicated via Gwadar Port because M8 has not been completed yet between Rato Dero and Gwadar. Because of the uncompleted M8 project, containers return to Karachi.
“If we ensure landing of NATO containers at Gwadar Port then U.S government will be compelled to give loan for the completion of M8 project”, Senator Tariq Azim said.
Representative of FBR Najib Abbas that they do not have any device to check the items inside a container without opening the container. He said that if the owners of 1657 containers that are present at KPT do not contact in three months, then those containers would be sold.