Parliamentary panel directs FBR to recover billions without further delay

ISLAMABAD: A sub-panel of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly has directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to make recovery of billions stuck up in litigation for years.

The PAC’s sub-committee on monitoring and implementation held its session and dealt with 29 audit paras, which, according to its convener and former National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, involved several billions of recoveries that the FBR was asked to make without further delay. The sub-body has been formed to monitor implementation of the directives of the PAC and ensure their compliance, as they had been lying unattended for a long time.

The concept of following up the implementation of the directions issued by the PAC was introduced by Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan when he had presided over the important parliamentary body. The sub-committees were brought in place to make it sure the PAC’s directives were carried out. It was thought that there had been no follow up on implementing the finding of the PAC, which nullified the whole purpose of accountability. Ayaz Sadiq told The News that the audit paras reviewed by his sub-committee related to sales tax. The FBR, he said, was given a one week’s time to come back with the implementation of the decisions. In the next meeting to be held on coming Thursday, he said, the matters relating to income tax will be taken up.

“We have directed the FBR to make recoveries and inform the parliamentary body accordingly,” the former speaker said. “The cases are dragging for the last several years with a little or no progress and the public exchequer has not got the money.”

Ayaz Sadiq said that the disputes about the sales tax also involved private parties. In some cases, he said, the government departments failed to deduct the sales tax for which they were held responsible.

He directed the law secretary to attend the next meeting of the sub-panel on July 23 to address the issues/paras involving billions of rupees relating to the FBR and pending in courts/tribunals because numerous posts have been lying vacant in these forums since long. The secretary was asked to bring the list of vacant posts in these bodies.

During Chaudhry Nisar’s time as the PAC chairman, a phenomenal amount was recovered because of the intensive efforts of the panel.

The sub-committee had on its agenda confirmation of the actionable points of its previous session held on March 3; review of compliance of PAC directives for the years 2009-10, 2008-09, 2007-08, 2005-06 and 2004-05 of 20 paras involving Rs50 million and above amount pertaining to the FBR; and compliance report on the directives of the sub-committee-VI of the PAC’s meeting held on March 12, 2019 pertaining to Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development (EOBI) audit report for the year 2011-12.

The PAC and its sub-committees are still reviewing, examining and scrutinising the audit paras of the dealings of the previous governments of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and PML-Q/Pervez Musharraf.