Customs to auction off 110 cars

Customs authorities are set to auction off 110 vehicles, most of which are luxury brands such as BMW, Land Rover, Mitsubishi, Mercedes-Benz and Lexus brought to the Chattogram port around a decade ago duty-free under a UN convention.

The "UN Customs Convention on the Temporary Importation of Private Road Vehicles of 1954" facilitates a privilege known as Carnet de Passage.

It allows tourists to bring their vehicles to a country without payment of customs duties, provided the vehicles are taken back with the foreign nationals.

Bangladesh was not a signatory, and the National Board of Revenue (NBR) in April 2011 introduced a rule which stipulated that foreign nationals provide security deposits amounting to the duties and taxes of the imported cars.

From 2013, the NBR decided to stop entertaining the facility altogether.

However, 369 luxury vehicles were brought to the Chattogram port between 2008 and 2012 under the facility. By 2013, 249 were released from the port.

The customs authority is now auctioning off 110, reasoning that the government has been denied of due revenues.

According to the auction notice, bidders will be able to submit related documents clicking on the e-auction link on the Bangladesh Customs website or physically at Dhaka, Chattogram, and Mongla customs stations between November 3 and November 4 this year.

At the individual level, bidders need to provide their national identification card and TIN (taxpayer identification number) certificate. For organisations, trade licence, VAT registration number and TIN are required.

"Arrangements have been made to inspect these vehicles on the spot during office hours from October 27 to November 2," Md Al Amin, deputy commissioner of the Custom House Chittagong, told The Daily Star.

On Monday, it organised a learning session for bidders to gain interest and how to participate in the auction.

"We took several initiatives to ensure transparency in the auction activities and increase general people's participation," Amin said.

"We hope that due to these initiatives, the number of participants will increase this time as compared to other auctions in the past."

According to the auction's inventory report, all of the cars are from the United Kingdom, but most were produced in Germany.

Of them, 28 are of the BMW brand, 24 Mercedes-Benz, 23 Mitsubishi, 10 Land Rover, nine Lexus, four Toyota, four Ford, and two Honda. There are also cars of the Jeep brand.

Keys of 43 vehicles could not be found, the report said. This correspondent saw over 20 with no wheels and windows broken.

Produced anywhere from 15 years to 26 years ago, the vehicles have engine displacements ranging from 1,796cc to 4,398cc.

Bangladesh does not allow importing cars aged over five years. For this reason, a "clearance permit" has to be availed from the Ministry of Commerce for 95 of the vehicles.

The reserve value (product price plus tax) of each of 76 vehicles is over Tk 1 crore, four over Tk 4 crore, while the rest from Tk 47 lakh to Tk 99 lakh.

Auctions were held four or five times in the last couple of years, but the vehicles never attracted figures expected by the customs, said Manjurul Alam, a regular bidder.

The cars have become unusable for being abandoned for a long time in the port yards, said Alam, also the proprietor of Multination Company Ltd.

Their value has depreciated, so they should be sold off at whatever the highest bids are in the interest of attaining revenue. Otherwise, they would need to be declared as scrap, he added.

Amin of the Chattogram customs said the values of the vehicles had been estimated afresh as per their current condition in line with the NBR's instructions.

"The bidders will be able to estimate prices after physical observation by contacting the designated phone number."