December 06, 2007	Thursday	Ziqa'ad 25, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Dec 5: The Board-in-Council (BIC) — an apex tax body — has constituted a committee to monitor and evaluate the performance of consultants hired under the World Bank-funded tax reforms administration project.

The committee, comprises two members from the private sector on tax policy reforms and human resource management and three tax members on direct taxes, customs and sales tax of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

The decision was taken at the BIC meeting, headed by FBR chairman M Abdullah Yousuf, here on Wednesday.

The World Bank had linked the loan for tax reforms, among other conditions, with the hiring of consultants to reform the taxation system.

To avoid criticism, the then finance minister Shaukat Aziz five years ago had appointed five consultants from the private sector but were named as members, like tax members.

These members were supposed to work as consultants for helping the tax officials in working out the reforms strategy, but it was observed that the consultants (private members) started relying on regular junior staff of the tax machinery.

These consultants have been hired under the World Bank loans to carry on the reforms project.

An official announcement said that chairman emphasised that while hiring international consultants a special care must be taken of their knowledge and experience of tax administration in accordance with the modern best practices at the international level.

He directed that liaison between FBR wings and consultants hired must increase so that maximum benefit is derived out of their international experience.

Expressing satisfaction over the pace of tax reforms, the chairman said the budget allocated for the reforms must be spent in most prudent manner.

The BIC during the meeting decided that the directorates of Training (DOTs) of FBR will be upgraded, capabilities of faculty members and infrastructure must be improved, FBR officials will be sent for training at IBA and LUMS, suitable officers will be encouraged to undergo research and PhD programmes, in-service officers will be supported for doing Executive MBA (Evening Programme).

The FBR chairman directed the HRM Wing to devise yearly programme, enumerating criteria, whereby scholarships / foreign training courses must be allocated to officers purely on merit basis.

He stressed that nominations for foreign training must be made in a transparent and well-defined manner to motivate officers which would be a reward to those good officers who have been performing well, but somehow cannot apply to the FBR or are unaware of the foreign training programmes.