Senate Standing Committee on Finance has shown displeasure over Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) after it expressed inability to provide record of Chaudhry Sugar Mills, and stated that "institutions are pursuing head-on policy with the Parliament." "This is obnoxious," said Chairman Senate Standing Committee on Finance Senator Saleem Mandviwalla while presiding over a meeting of the committee, adding that institutions appear to be head-on with the Parliament.
The committee met here on Thursday to consider agenda of the SECP, FBR and Finance Division and while taking up the Corporate Rehabilitation Bill, 2017 of SECP, Mandviwalla inquired from the officials what happened to the record of Chaudhry Sugar Mills sought by the committee. "We have written a letter to you in this regard," he further said.
However, the SECP officials expressed their complete ignorance about the letter written to them by the committee and stated that record could not be provided because original file was taken away by Federal Investigation Agency, which is investigating alleged record tampering of Chaudhry Sugar Mills by former SECP Chairman Zafar Hijazi. Senator Mohsin Aziz said, "This is leading to an issue." Other members also agreed with the chairman that parliamentary committees are not taken seriously. Finance Division's request to defer its agenda items also caused annoyance, as Mandiwalla stated that this is not the first time that such request has been made by the Finance Division.
On Thursday, Additional Finance Secretary (Internal Finance) Ali Akbar Sharifzada requested the committee chairman to defer Finance Division's three items on the agenda: (i) briefing on the alleged double booking of Rs 64 billion of Pakistan Development Fund Limited (PDFL) as non-tax revenue to understate budget deficit; (ii) in-camera briefing on total borrowing by the government with particular reference to Chinese Bank during the last four years as well as their mark-up rates; (iii) and any other items with permission of chairman.
"Finance Ministry is not taking the committee seriously," said chairman of the committee and also questioned as to why Finance Division wants in-camera briefing on loans details and mark-up rates. He stated that these are public information available on State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) website.
On the agenda item of the business community that anti-money laundering (AML) law was being misused against them, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) stated since 2010, when anti-money laundering law was enforced, 210 suspicious transaction reports were forwarded to them by the Financial Management Unit (FMU) for probe against 332 individuals.
The FBR officials said however after investigation, 227 individuals were found to be national tax number (NTN) holders and 105 were non-NTN holders and prosecution was initiated only against three of them. All the transactions involving Rs 2 million and above from one bank accounts are taken as STR and chosen for investigation to ascertain whether or not it was money laundering case.
On the issue of existence of Competition Commission of Pakistan challenged by the business community in court of law, Attorney General for Pakistan suggested that the committee needs to request to the court that matters related to public importance and taxes should be decided on a priority basis. However, the committee said that instead of making a broad request, the committee would make a request specific to the CCP.
The chairman of the committee stated that CCP has been dysfunctional after its existence was challenged in the courts by various business organizations against whom it took action for cartelization and issued notices to them. The AGP was optimistic that judgment on the existence of CCP reserved in the Lahore High Court (LHC) will be announced in a few weeks and it will be hopefully in favour of CCP because it was not beyond its legal power or authority. The existence was challenged on the pretext of 18th constitutional amendment but the matter of the CCP was not dealt with in the amendment.
The meeting also approved the Corporate Rehabilitation Bill 2017 with amendments and directed representatives of construction sector from FATA, PATA and KP and FBR to sit together to find out a way to address the grievances of business community affected by clause 126F of the Income Tax Ordinance.
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