A three-hour meeting between customs authority and reconditioned vehicle importers here to resolve crisis regarding delivery of imported vehicles from Chittagong port sheds ended inconclusive yesterday afternoon.
Importers have not been taking delivery of their vehicles from the port sheds for nearly a month following a dispute with the customs and National Board of Revenue (NBR) centring depreciation of vehicles.
As a result, the four sheds of the port with 2,800-capacity became crammed with 4,000 imported vehicles.
On the depreciation issue, Bangladesh Reconditioned Vehicle Importers and Dealers Association (Barvida) lodged a writ petition before the High Court on September 3 against the customs and the NBR.
Sources said the court gave its judgement in favour of Barvida and ordered the customs and NBR to follow the previous depreciation allowances.
With the certified copy of this verdict Barivida President Abdul Hoque and Secretary General Abdul Hamid Sharif flew in Chittagong yesterday noon and held a meeting with Chittagong Customs (import) Commissioner Shah Alam Khan at the conference room of customs house.
Task Force, Chittagong Commander Brigadier General Hasan Nasir and Customs (export) Commissioner Margub Ahmed were also present at the meeting.
The two Barvida leaders submitted the certified copy of HC judgement to the customs authority. But the three-hour-long meeting from 2.00pm failed to reach any solution to the crisis as the Customs (import) Commissioner Shah Alam Khan reportedly refused to oblige to the court order.
Instead, the customs commissioner told the Barvida leaders that the matter would be resolved after having discussion and receiving guidelines from the NBR authority.
“We failed to resolve the problem today because the customs commissioner is not ready to oblige to the court order,” alleged Barvida Secretary General Sharif.