Chittagong Bureau

18 luxury cars of MP-ministers are lying in the port yard. During the Awami League government, members of parliament (MP)-ministers brought 52 cars from abroad duty-free. But after the fall of the government, they did not release those cars from the port.

Chittagong Port Authority has sent the documents to the auction branch of Chittagong Customs last Wednesday to start the auction process of 18 of these vehicles. However, the custom could not give a specific date when it will be auctioned.

It is known that former MPs and ministers imported 52 vehicles through Chittagong Port, Mongla and Kamalapur ICDs. But after August 5, the twelfth national parliament was dissolved, so the customs authority blocked 52 luxury cars.

According to NBR data, most of the 52 vehicles are Toyota Land Cruiser and Land Cruiser Prado, Range Rover, Toyota Jeep, Toyota LC Station, Mercedes Benz, BMW brand cars.

The normal duty rate of this 3346 cc car brought through Chittagong port is 826.6 percent. Most of these imported cars were brought from Australia, Japan and Singapore. Chittagong Port Authority has started handing over the cars to the customs for auction sale as the stipulated period of keeping them in the yard after import has passed more than 30 days.

Secretary of Chittagong Port Authority. Omar Farooq said, "Since 30 days have passed after arriving at the port, the documents have been sent to the customs house for auctioning the cars as per the rules. Now custom will take action. Because the cars are kept in our important places. The sooner these cars are sold at auction, the better for us.

New containers can be placed there when the yard is empty.The cars for which the auction process has started in the first phase include- former MP Tarana Halim, Abdul Waheed of Mymensingh, Abul Kalam Azad of Jamalpur, SM Al Mamun of Sitakunda, Chittagong, Mujibur Rahman of Banshkhali, SM Kamal Hossain of Khulna, Surendra Nath Chakraborty of Naogaon, Shah Sarwar of Gaibandhar. KabirSAK Ekramuzzaman of Brahmanbaria, Sazzadul Hasan of Netrokona, Shahriar Zahedi of Naser Jhenaidah, Tauhiduzzaman of Jessore and Muhammad Sadiq of Sunamganj are among them.

However, seven MPs, including cricketer Shakib Al Hasan and Barrister Sumon, repossessed their cars in July before the government fell.