The Directorate General of Intelligence and Investigation has sought "secret service funds" from the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for monitoring of tax officials, vigilance of key revenue collection stations and networking of sources across the country.
Sources told Business Recorder on Saturday that the directorate wanted huge amount of "secret service funds" for its newly established Vigilance Wing to check revenue leakage at key points and keep a bird eye-view on tax officials, involved in corrupt practices.
Intelligence DG has stated that the Vigilance Wing had become fully operational following joining of army officials from GHQ, Rawalpindi. The Wing with headquarters in Islamabad comprises two full-fledged field vigilance units at Karachi and Lahore. There is a need of financial and logistic support for the Vigilance Wing for carrying out smooth operations.
Sources said the vigilance and surveillance operations covering major revenue centres required substantial amount in the first year of operations for developing a network at source at vital revenue points. Moreover, funds are also required for purchase of gadgets used in vigilance and surveillance operations. Keeping this in view, an amount of Rs 1.5 million may be sanctioned for the DG Intelligence under the head of "secret service funds".
So far only two vehicles have been approved by FBR for Vigilance Wing, as 10 officers have joined the wing at Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. The directorate quoted that an immobile Vigilance Wing is like a paralysed man monitoring spiders, therefore, the DG Intelligence had demanded 11 additional vehicles for this wing.
The directorate has also demanded approval for using confiscated tempered vehicles for carrying out vigilance purposes. Under the directorate's plan, the DG Intelligence had formed a full-fledged Vigilance Wing for integrity check of tax officials.
The Vigilance Wing is a blend of customs, income tax and army officers/officials, whereas utilisation of the existing intelligence and investigation officers would be done at regional offices at Peshawar, Quetta, Faisalabad, Multan, Sukkur and Gujranwala.
The directorate has been engaged in integrity check of all officers/officials of FBR, preferably BS-11 and above, profiling of officers (BS-16 and above) at Intelligence and Investigation (HQs) Islamabad and profiling of officials (BS 11-15) at regional offices of directorate.
The integrity check through computerised personal profiling of officers/officials BS-11 and above would be done on a specially devised format. Sources for obtaining information about tax officials included posting/transfer notifications, corruption related complaints received by the department, investigated by DG, I&I; ground check reports from field Vigilance Units; information from 'Directorate General of Internal Audit, External Audit (Direct & Indirect Taxes), FTO, courts and other agencies.
Sources said the DG Intelligence would conduct documents-based integrity check of tax officials, which was a complete deviation from hearsay and whimsical assessments. The documents-based integrity check included documents/records/files, which form the basis for documents-based integrity check, mandatory annual declaration of assets, performance evaluation reports (PERs), personal files/records, Human Resource Information System; previous departmental inquiry proceedings record, income Tax record and input from other agencies.
The DG Intelligence would also conduct cross-matching and data analysis of annual declarations, income tax record details/documents available with other agencies and on ground position of assets in possession of the reported officer.
Sources said the continuous vigilance and surveillance on tax officials would be done for verification of declared version of income, assets and expenses, track un-declared/mis-declared assets, ascertain real lifestyle, track Benami transactions and detect ventures and accounts of the tax officials.
The DG intelligence would keep a liaison with other anti-corruption agencies. The directorate officials would develop working relationship with NAB, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Provincial Anti-Corruption, Establishments, SBP, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and other sensitive agencies.
The DG Intelligence would be engaged in mutual sharing of information/data observing prescribed limits, exchange of expertise with the said organisations for the mutual benefit. The DG Intelligence would give specific findings based on evidence/record, integrity assessment defendable at any forum and integrity check report to FBR on as and when required basis.