The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Sindh Assembly has decided to summon officials of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to question them about the non-payment of Rs120 billion by the FBR to the provincial government on account of the Workers Welfare Fund (WWF).
The decision to this effect was taken by the PAC in its meeting on Thursday with the committee’s chairman, Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, presiding over the session. The meeting considered the audit paras related to the financial accounts of the Sindh government’s Labour Department.
The secretary of the Sindh government’s Labour Department, Rafique Qureshi, informed the PAC members that the FBR had collected Rs120 billion from the Sindh-based industrial establishments on account of the WWF. He said that the FBR had yet to transfer these funds to the Sindh government.
Khuhro opined that the FBR had been resorting to injustice with Sindh by choosing not to pay Rs120 billion payable to the provincial government as WWF. He told the PAC members that after the adoption of the 18th Constitutional Amendment, only provinces were empowered to collect and possess the WWF. He said the federal government had been violating the 18th Constitutional Amendment by authorising the FBR to collect the WWF was the same funds after collection were not paid to the province.
He appealed to the prime minister to take cognisance of the non-payment of Rs120 billion in WWF to the Sindh government. The PAC chairman also urged the federal government to immediately release these funds as withholding these massive finances negated the constitution.
Khuhro said that Sindh would use every means to get its constitutional right to collect and retain WWF. He recalled that earlier the Sindh chief minister had written a letter to the federal government to get this issue resolved through the Council of Common Interests. The PAC will also write letters in this regard to the FBR chairman and other relevant officials of the federal government.
