APBUMA chairman Syed Aasim Shah, in a letter written to the Ministry of Textile Industry, said that the role of Associations must be restored in the DDT Order 2017-18 in view of their productive and contributory services, as they are the elected representatives of the exporters. It is to be noted that Ministry of Textile in its notification No. 1(42-A) TID/17-TR-II dated 12.12.2017 has omitted the clause mentioning Association’s role.
“The revised notification should be issued in consultation with the real stakeholders, restoring the required clause of ‘Association Role’ for the true implementation of PM Package, with full accuracy and transparency of duty drawback disbursement to the exporters on merit,” the chairman said.
After the new notification of textile ministry various agents have become active to approach the exporters for early release of claims without any queue from SBP, demanding certain percentage which is not possible but only with the connivance of the relevant department of the central bank.
Aasim Shah drew the attention of the ministry to the transparent and prudent role of trade bodies in implementation of export promotion initiatives, without allowing corruption or undue influence from any side in the past. On the other hand, a number of export promotion initiatives of the Ministry of Commerce have been mishandled by the officials of the government organizations, needless to mention their names, he added.
APBUMA chairman stated in the letter that Associations have always played positive and active role in implementing government policies. “The track record of Associations’ performance is evident that they successfully implemented Textile Quota management without a single incidence of error or misappropriation of any kind whereas prior to that, misappropriation of billions of Rupees was detected in Quota Management. Similar was the situation while implementing post quota regime policies like Research and Development Support, DLTL and even the DDT of 2016-17 under PM Textile Package.”
Syed Aasim Shah pleaded that Associations also checked few bogus shipments, curtailed fraudulent exercises of some exporters during DLTL management and cancelled the membership of such exporters. This way Associations saved national exchequer from fraudulent elements, although they had to face difficulties within business circles, he added.
The APBUMA leader observed that the government has taken one-sided decision in isolation without consultation of the associations, which are the elected platforms of industry’s stakeholders, proposing that the ‘Role of Association’ must be restored and specified in the New DDT Order at the earliest.
