$1,000 fee per Nato container on cards

ISLAMABAD: The government is contemplating $1,000 fee on each container passing through Pakistan for Isaf/Nato forces stationed in Afghanistan, The News has learnt.

The National Logistics Cell (NLC) will collect the fee if Islamabad agrees to reopen the supply routes it blocked in November last year following the Nato attack on the Salala check-post in which 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed.

“There is no proposal from the FBR to impose transit fee on Isaf/Nato containers but the government is considering allowing NLC to charge fee for extending ‘No Objection Certificate’ (NOC) and transportation charges,” said the sources privy to this development.

With the approval of parliament, in the Finance Bill 2011 the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had inserted an enabling provision of the Customs Act 1969 to collect transit fee for which the mechanism and rate was not yet finalised. The enabling provision was introduced in the Customs Act in June 2011, but the government has not exercised the powers to notify the fee as per section 129A of the Customs Act, 1969.

“The proposed fee is not to be imposed by the FBR despite getting approval in the Finance Bill, 2011,” said one of the top officials of the FBR. Instead, the NLC will be tasked to collect the fee besides ensuring that no pilferage of goods takes place during transit through Pakistan.

“Currently, the NLC is charging a meagre fee for granting NOC and a proposal is under consideration to raise it to $1,000 per container in case Nato supplies are restored,” official sources confirmed while talking to The News here on Friday.

Under an agreement signed by Musharraf, Nato /ISAF forces were allowed to transport goods through Pakistan without paying any transit fee. Supplies to Nato’s 150,000 troops are shipped to Karachi and then trucked across Pakistan, entering Afghanistan either in its south, through the Chaman border crossing, or via the Khyber Pass to eastern Afghanistan.

Over 4,000 containers pass through Pakistan per month to ensure supply of goods to Nato troops from all three routes. In addition, some 1,000 fuel tankers also go from Pakistan each month to Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s economy has sustained over $68 billion losses in the ongoing war against terrorism since 9/11. Supply of goods to Nato troops has badly damaged the country’s roads, bridges and other infrastructure from Karachi to Torkham while the country charged nothing from the allied forces.