February 05, 2008	Tuesday	Muharram 26, 1429

ISLAMABAD, Feb 4: The government has allowed double salary to 16,500 out of 25,000 employees of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) as part of the tax machinery reforms expected to be completed by 2009.

Addressing at the first-ever ‘Employees Workshop’ here on Monday FBR Chairman M Abdullah Yousuf said that now the concept of living wages existed in the tax machinery.

With the World Bank-funded reform project, the board has allowed the special pay package (double salary) to all its employees from Naib Qasid to senior tax officer. However, the chairman has not made it clear whether to consider the remaining 8,500 employees for the facility or they will be declared as surplus.

“We now have to prove and justify this special treatment through our efficiency, performance and results,” he asked the employees. He also underlined various on-going projects of infrastructural development, which include building of an additional block of FBR with a total cost of Rs230 million.

Mr. Yousuf said that the total involvement and commitment of FBR employees were required to execute the on-going Tax Administration Reforms Programme (Tarp) and Tax Policy Programme with a complete success.

He said that all officers/officials had to make determined efforts to make FBR an institution of international standard that could facilitate the taxpayers and deliver to the needs of the government.

Besides facilitation and education of taxpayers, the major focus of the programme was on training and re-training of the employees, end-to-end solution of the problems through automation and infrastructural development. A considerable progress had already been made in this regard, he said, adding: “We have to make things easy for the taxpayers and improve the efficiency, capability and working environment of our employees to enable them to give better results”.

The chairman said that the infrastructural facilities and working environment provided at Regional Tax Offices were comparable to any of the tax institution in the developed countries. He said that the FBR was in the process of acquiring a piece of land for employees’ residential accommodation.

He said that the primary objective of establishing the FBR Foundation was to ensure the welfare of employees and to look after their housing, educational and health needs. He said the foundation would be fully operative by the end of 2008.

Speaking about the prevailing security environment, he said that the security of the employees and the office buildings was being ensured through a system. A committee had been constituted to dispose of disciplinary cases as early as possible, he said.

Talking about the transformation of CBR into FBR, Mr Yousuf said that it was not simply change of the nomenclature but much more than that. “It now gives us much greater autonomy which would help us to grow at a faster pace and become an institution capable of delivering as a prime revenue-generating agency of the country,” he added.