Pajhwok
10/01/2005
By Pakhtun Sahar
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ISLAMABAD - Pakistani has fired some customs officials based in the Torkham town near the border with Afghanistan after 21 tonnes of afghani coins went missing from containers during transportation to Kabul.

Gul Sam Khan, a customs official in the border town, told Pajhwok Afghan News on Saturday the coins had gone missing four days back. The scam came to light when the trawlers transporting the money were stopped for a weight check at the border.

"On suspicion, custom officials in Torkham weighed one trailer and found 21 tonnes of the coins of two and five afghanis missing from it," revealed Gul Sam Khan, who would not say as how the big-time theft took place.

Head of the Customs House in Peshawar Sher Nawaz told Pajhwok the newly-made coins that arrived from a German mint at the Karachi port were being transported in eight containers to Kabul. He did not know whether the coins went missing in Germany or were stolen in Pakistan.

He said the driver and cleaner of the container, from which the money was missing, managed to escape. Nawaz added they had sought information from the central bank in Kabul and Afghan diplomats in Peshawar on the exact amount coins in the trawlers.

However, the first secretary at the Afghan consulate in Peshawar said it was up to the Pakistan government to probe the scandal. In Kabul, this news agency failed to get comments from the central bank, whose governor and his deputy are currently in the US.

An Islamabad-based newspaper reported in its Saturday's edition that President Hamid Karzai had sought his Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharrafs help in probing the scam. Karzai took up the issue with President Musharraf during his telephonic contact on Thursday, the paper said while quoting a senior diplomat.

The trailers were taken to the Customs House in Peshawar and given in the custody of Pakistan Customs officials, who were reluctant to speak on the scandal, affecting the impoverished Central Asian country. Only nine of 30 tons of coins were found in the containers, seals on which were reportedly tampered with.

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