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HERAT CITY (SW): The scanners at the Islam Qala dry port in Herat are deliberately kept out of order for corruption purposes by mafia rackets, officials at the Herat Chamber of Commerce and Industries (HCCI) have said.
Few years back, the scanners were installed at the Islam Qala dry port in a bid to check international consignments, but the scanners have been out of order for quite a while now. Abdul Wadood Faizzada, deputy president HCCI, told Salam Watandar that the scanners have been out of order for years now, but the government, particularly the Ministry of Trade, has done nothing to fix it.
He said these scanners were particularly important to monitor and evaluate imports, but now the situation has been exploited for corruption.
Mohammad Anwar Rehmani, head of Customs in Herat, acknowledged that the scanners are out of order. He said the issue has been shared with the Ministry of Finance (MoF) multiple times, but no action has been taken so far to fix the scanners. He went on to say some criminal and mafia networks have deliberately kept these scanners out of order.
Meanwhile, Ahmad Rashad Popal, head of Customs at the MoF, has said a project to fix 28 such scanners at dry ports in different provinces is under consideration, and soon a private firm would be tasked in this regard. He noted the contracts for fixing these scanners have been announced many times, but no foreign firm expressed interest due to poor state of security.
ENDS
