The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry in collaboration with Directorate (Reforms & Automation), Customs Karachi organized an awareness session on WeBOC for its members. Ms. Hina Gul, Deputy Director, Directorate of (A&R), Customs Karachi gave a detailed presentation to the participants on the key features of WeBOC. Arshad Hussain, Senior Manager PRAL was also present at the occasion.

Speaking at the occasion, Ms. Hina Gul said that WeBOC was providing good ffacilitation to the importers/exporters by reducing time and cost (24/7 online payment). She said that WeBOC was ensuring transparency and preventing fraudulent transactions and was a right step towards development of National Single Window. She said that WeBOC was ensuring immediate settlement of revenue receipt in treasury accounts and would contribute positively towards promoting digital ecosystem in Pakistan.

Talking about the coverage of WeBOC, she said that it was covering 95 percent transactions at seaports, 87 percent at dry ports, 93 percent at airports and 65 percent at land border stations. She said that if any importer or exporter faced any problems from WeBOC, the Customs Collector of concerned area should be contacted for seeking redress instead of approaching PRAL or Directorate (A&R) Karachi. Arshad Hussain, Senior Manager PRAL briefed the participants about the role of his organization in WeBOC and assured that the highlighted issues of business community would be addressed to facilitate them.

Addressing the session, Tahir Abbasi, Senior Vice President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry said that SoPs of WeBOC have become quite old and urged that FBR should revise and upgrade them to remove their flaws. He said that if a businessman did not use WeBOC account for 60 days, the account was deactivated which was creating problems for business community. He stressed that account deactivation period should be increased from 60 days to 120 days. He said that for reactivation of account, all those documents were demanded that were provided at the time of opening of account, therefore, he emphasized that account reactivation process should be streamlined to reduce documentary requirements. He said that WeBOC should be integrated with the online systems of SECP and other relevant organizations to facilitate the business community in registration and other processes. The participants highlighted various issues related to WeBOC and gave useful suggestions to address them.