The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has launched a Centralized Customs Examination system to combat corruption among customs appraisers and examiners. As part of this initiative, a Centralized Examination Unit (CEU) has been established in Karachi to randomly assign imported consignments for inspection.
The FBR issued a customs general order number 1 of 2025 on Tuesday.
According to the new procedure, in order to improve the quality of customs examinations, bring transparency, expedite the clearance of goods, and enhance trade facilitation, the Centralized Customs Examination is hereby introduced.
Under the new procedure, the CEU shall be located at a designated place in Karachi, to be notified by the Chief Collector of Customs Appraisement (South), Karachi. Deputy/Assistant Collectors shall be posted in CEU by the Chief Collector of Customs Appraisement (South), Karachi, who shall be responsible resolution of system-related and logistics/ operational issues.
The Appraisers (Examination) shall be posted by the Chief Collector of Customs Appraisement (South), Karachi at CEU as per the requirement.
Consignments arriving at all the terminals of Karachi Port will be examined through the CEU. The goods declarations (GDs) filed at the Collectorates of Customs, Appraisement — East, West, and SAPT, Karachi, and assigned examination by or created in the Customs Computerized System (CCS) shall be processed through the CEU. In the next phase, CEU will be suitably rolled out to other customs stations at Port Qasim and across the country.
All Appraisers (examination) of the Collectorates of Customs, Appraisement- East, West, and SAPT, Karachi shall be placed in the CEU. Each Appraiser (examination) shall be allocated to a specific Port terminal/ Off-dock terminal (ODT) for three days on the principle of randomization by the CCS. Such allocation may be extended to one week depending upon operational requirements at the port terminal ODT.
The Containers/LCL consignments shall then be randomly assigned by the CCS to the Appraiser (examination) for examination as per the Port Terminal/ODT allocated to them by the CCS.
All examinations shall preferably be completed on the same day. Any pending examination shall be required to be completed by the same examiner the next day, FBR maintained.
GDs/examinations in which documents are called, but not uploaded on the same day shall be re-allocated by the CCS next day to another available examiner on the same Port terminal/ODT.
The Appraisers (examination) shall be equipped with tablets and body cams etc., which shall be integrated with the CCS for uploading of pictures, and feeding of examination reports. The Central Control Room for the CEU shall monitor the real-time body camera footage under the supervision of AC/DC (CEU) and store the footage for a minimum of 03 months for retrieval as and when required.
The GDs of any specified category of goods that are required to be finalized at the level of Assistant/ Deputy Collector shall be forwarded in the system to the Assistant/ Deputy Collector, Examination of the Collectorates for further processing.
