National Board of Revenue (NBR) has decided to install scanners at all sea, river, land and air ports to strengthen security as well as prevent the siphoning off money through export and import. To this end, the revenue authority is going to procure 100 scanners by 2020, which would be installed at all ports gradually, officials said, reports BSS.
Talking to the state news agency, Md Gius Kamal, first secretary at Customs Modernization and Project Management Department of NBR said, “We have taken the decision of installing scanners at all ports to avert any risk regarding security and revenue collection.” Revealing that the scanners would be collected by December 2020, he said “At first seven scanners would be procured for Chattogram ports to look at in and out bound containers.”
Among the 12 gates of Chattogram ports, at present, five gates have scanners. Officials said earlier the Working Committee on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Financial Terrorism has directed all the ports in the country to install scanners. The NBR has taken the move which would also help Bangladesh upgrade its rating. In addition, it would also be evaluated at the upcoming meeting of the Asia Pacific Group (APG), they added.
Finance Minister A H M Mustafa Kamal after taking the office also directed to install scanners at all ports. Scanning or non-intrusive inspection (NII) refers to non-destructive methods of inspecting and identifying goods in transportation systems. It is often used for scanning of intermodal freight shipping containers.
The scanning system would also help check import and export goods to prevent money laundering through invoicing or any other means.
Replying to a query, Gius Kamal said different types of scanners are being used at ports to check containers. “So, scanners would be installed considering the requirement and necessity at each port.” He said government provides cash incentive against many goods to promote export. “But, many dishonest exporters do trickery and send other goods instead of designated one inside the container to bag the cash incentive, and scanners could prevent such crimes.”
