Dhaka – As traders at Benapole Land Port continued their strike for the second day protesting Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) members taking up permanent position at the custom’s weighbridge, the government has had to bear a revenue loss of Tk30 crore in two days.Users of the port stopped offloading trucks since Sunday, by now hundreds of trucks loaded with goods remain stuck on both sides of the border.
According to Customs officials, the illegal intervention of BGB has affected the total trading and revenue collection of Benapole port.
Emdadul Haque Lata, general secretary of Clearing and Forwarding Agents Association, said a conflict had broken out between BGB, customs and traders over weighing imported goods.
He claimed that since Saturday, the BGB members started weighing the goods and have taken control of the weighing scale of the port and customs themselves.
Lt Col Ariful Hoque, commanding officer of BGB-49 Battalion, said presence of BGB representatives while weighing goods at the ports and check posts has been implemented according to the decision taken at the 60th meeting of the National Committee on Smuggling Resistance.
Customs authority maintains that such activities of BGB in ports is illegal.The National Board of Revenue (NBR) in its instructions directed to conduct drives under taskforce for the goods which are not imported through Bill of Entry (BE). In the instruction, Bill of Entry (BE) goods have been kept out of the coverage of taskforces.UNB
