The special committee of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of National Assembly was shocked over the action of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) against over 600 customs officials for their alleged involvement in the ISAF/Nato containers scam.
Riaz Hussain Pirzada MNA, who was charring the meeting of the committee held here on Thursday, said that the FBR had not given right impression of the department by taking action against such a large number of officials without concrete evidence. "The FBR is known for its financial discipline, but investigation has also been conducted against the official, who even remained posted for one day at a position dealing with the transit trade. How it is possible that over 600 customs officials are simultaneously involved in such a scam and all of them are considered to be corrupt by the tax department," he questioned.
He said that the FBR had setup a new trend by taking simultaneous action against such a large number of tax officials. Whether the FBR can justify its action on ethical grounds for involving such a large number of tax officials in the scam. FBR Member Strategic Planning and Statistics (SP&S) Mahmood Alam and Acting Member Customs tried to convince the committee that the FBR had not fixed responsibility on 600 customs officials. He further clarified that it was not correct that 600 officials had been suspended, but around 20-25 officials had been suspended.
An FBR inquiry committee headed by FBR Member Taxpayer Audit was conducting inquiry into the scam. "So far, some officials including deputy collectors, principal appraises, appraisers etc have been suspended in the case," he added. However, officials have been transferred from their current positions of transit trade to others. He further said that FBR had also transferred some senior officials from their current postings as well and the inquiry committee had yet to finalise inquiry report.
The official further informed the committee that investigations were underway and no such action had been taken against 600 customs officials as pointed out by some committee members of the PAC. Responding to a query, Mahmood Alam said that the Revenue Division was being separated from the FBR, as the latter would work under the division.