PPP activist and former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Excise and Taxation Liaquat Shabab has rejected allegations of the massive allotment of the forfeited vehicles of the department during last government. Addressing a news conference here at Peshawar Press Club on Friday, he warned the management and correspondent of the newspaper concerned to clarify the situation within a period of one week otherwise he would file a defamation suit against them.
The former provincial minister said vehicles were given to officials of the department for bringing improvement in the recovery. He said the authority of the allotment of vehicles rested with the Director General (DG), who decided the cases for both recovery and requisitions of other departments.
He said that bringing transparency in the allotment of vehicles, he had constituted a three-member committee comprising the Secretary Excise and Taxation, Director General and ETO Headquarters. Furthermore, he said that during their government the Chief Justice of Peshawar High Court had also taken suo motu notice of the issue and except the officials of the department he had ordered the recovery of the rent of such vehicles. He said the provincial government had submitted daily report with the court in that regard.
He said on the directives of high court they had withdrawn 66 vehicles from influential officers, but other agencies failed to recover a single vehicle in that regard. Furthermore, he said 61 vehicles were given to the department of administration for auction, but not a single penny was received by the department. The former minister said during his minister-ship the department succeeded in achieving 100 percent target of the collection of revenue.
He said that excise and taxation was the biggest revenue collecting agency of the province that collected 70 percent tax as compare to 40 percent revenue by all other agencies. He said they had also succeeded in the recovery of a huge amount of 110 million rupees tax from Karkhano Market, the largest Bara Market of the country.