The government’s finance team spent a busy day on Monday charting out its strategy to face a volley of critical questions from the parliamentarians, as the Senate Standing Committee on Finance will start its week-long review of the budget proposals for the next financial year on Tuesday.
An informed source said that Finance Minister Ishaq Dar wants a better approach from the finance division and FBR officials, considering the fact that the finance secretary will retire in a few weeks while the incumbent Chairman FBR is on a three-month extension after retirement.
The government, the source said, has been warned that ad-hoc appointments could cause serious embarrassment, as many of the senior officers were not taking seriously the instructions of the soon to be retired top mandarins. The finance minister wanted the top men to be retained till the budget was approved. He wants one of them to assume the post of Auditor General upon retirement.
It is important to mention that the parliamentary committee will question the rationality of many of the tax proposals and highlight the ulterior motives of the amendments embedded in the finance bill. It is difficult for the tax mandarins to convince the Committee on their proposed revenue steps and the Committee might even reject their proposals.
An official statement said the Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Monday chaired a post-budget meeting at FBR headquarters. The meeting reviewed matters relating to the new budget measures as well as the state of revenue collection for the current fiscal year. Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Revenue, Haroon Akhtar, Chairman as well as senior officers of the FBR participated in the meeting.
Chairman FBR briefed the meeting on efforts being made to ensure the collection of the targeted revenue for the current fiscal. He also briefed on the implementation arrangements for the new budgetary measures.
The minister appreciated the extensive consultation carried out by FBR before the budget and said that it had been helpful in finalising progressive revenue measures. He directed FBR to make full use of the parliamentary debate on the budget and to examine, in detail, the proposals received during the debate. He said that the government would give due consideration to all such proposals and make adjustments if necessary.
He also directed the FBR officials to make concerted efforts to achieve the revenue target for the fiscal year 2017-18. He said good revenue collection was exceedingly important for government’s efforts aimed at inclusive growth and employment generation.
The minister said the government is determined to achieve a higher GDP growth rate of 6 per cent in the coming fiscal year. He said the government has borrowed only for development projects and not for meeting the routine expenditures.
