Suspension of registration process: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa E&T department faces Rs 80 million revenue shortfall

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Excise and Taxation Department is facing a revenue shortfall of Rs 80 million due to suspension of registration process during the last three years, the Business Recorder has learnt. The registration process had been stopped since renaming of the province, as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and some other technical reasons, due to which more than 180,000 vehicles registration were lying pending to the provincial department of E&T from 2010, according to well-placed sources.
The sources further revealed that the revenue shortcoming of the department of E&T, which is hovering around Rs 70 to Rs 80 million amid huge backlog and pendency from 2010 up to date. In the present situation, the department revenue has recorded a sluggish as mostly vehicle owners are giving prefer to register vehicle in Punjab and rest of parts of the country, which was also causing huge revenues drawback to the department, an official told this scribe.
The officials informed that the EHA Hoffmann, GMBH, Germany firm, who awarded contract by authority for a period of five years, to development computerised vehicle registration system, has also shown great concern over gradually hampering the investment, as the company feels still insured about its contract with the authority, the an official, who acknowledgeable about the registration process informed. The company, the official said that, had assigned the job of issuing around 0.5 million computerised vehicles registration number plates and developing computerised database of all the vehicles registered in the province.
In April 2010, the company contract was extended as the task assigned to the firm could not be completed within the stipulated period owing to technical reasons, according to the sources. The sources further said that the stoppage of issuing new computerised number plates since September 2010 caused a substantial financial losses to the department after a large number of people got their new vehicles registered in other provinces. "A considerably declined in computerised vehicles registration rate was registered over the past two years, but the recovery ratio was also dim in the KP, the sources said.
The official informed that the process of issuance of computerised number plates was stopped due to renaming of province as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the light of 18th constitutional amendments in 2010. Through a circular, the KP government had instructed the authority not to issue number plates with old name after the renaming of the province.
When the province was renaming as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the sources informed that a huge stock of around 20,000 number plates along with 24,000 registration copies and 26,000 stickers was declared redundant by the German firm, EHA, which costly Rs 23 million. In August 2010, the department had moved a summary to then chief minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti, about the exhausting of the redundant stock, the officials said.
The sources further disclosed that the summary was approved and amount worth of Rs 23 million had released the company on April 2011. In the meanwhile, the sources said that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had ceiled a bulk of stock amounting of Rs 23 million claimed by the company and initiated an inquiry in this regard. After carrying out a probe by NAB, the amount was un-ceiled on July 17 2012, due to which manufacturing and embossing plant was remained non-operational for last two year.
In wake of freezing of embossing plant, the officials said that the pending rose at 200,000 in the province, while the registration books were also seized. When the NAB has unsealed the stock, an official said that the department had cleared a pending of 42,000 by dispatching registration books, plates and stickers to entire district of the province, while also issued 50,000 new number plates as well.
The officials informed that registration process was carried out through online more than 17 districts of the province. The officials admitted that the authority had failed to supply computerised number plates to more than 180,000 new vehicle owners as NAB was the biggest hurdle before the huge clearing of pending cases.
Zaheer Ahmad, a resident of Peshawar city, complained that he daily visited the department of Excise and Taxation for getting computerised number plates but he left in empty handed every time. "I had submitted all perquisite documents a year back, but authorities are yet to be issue computerised number plates," he added. Wajidullah Khan, who came to daily to registration of motorbike, said that police are fleecing them with charging huge fines on pretext of expiry date of temporary documents issued by the excise and taxation department. What we can do, I had visited number of time to get my registration, but not availed, he said. The visitors to the motor branch have urged the authorities to take notice of the situation.