KARACHI, Nov 15: A senior official of the Board of Revenue conceded before the Public Accounts Committee of the Sindh Assembly on Tuesday that recovery of government dues was no more a priority of the field staff, who collected the money from the people only to embezzle it.

Senior Member of the Board of Revenue Shazor Shamoon also said government land could not be encroached upon without the knowledge of relevant government functionaries.

He made these remarks at a meeting of the PAC presided over by its chairman Jam Tamachi Unnar here on Tuesday.

The meeting was held to settle the revenue department’s 27 audit paras of three years — 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09.

However, taking strong notice of the non-recovery of Rs316 million, the PAC deferred all the 27 audit paras to its next meeting to be held after two months.The PAC chief directed the secretary of the Sindh Assembly to write letters to the chief minister and the revenue minister about incompetence and negligence of revenue officials.

PAC members Ghulam Mujadid Isran, Aamir Moin Pirzada and Muhammad Shoaib observed that apparently the officials concerned had taken PAC notices very lightly and, therefore, they did not bother to come prepared to attend the meeting.

Mr Unnar directed Mr Shamoon to provide a list of all those tapedars and mukhtiarkars who failed to discharge their duty and recover government revenue from people in their respective tehsils and districts.

The PAC chief recalled that in the past revenue officials used to take over jeeps and tractors of landlords if the latter failed to pay government dues.

He was also critical of the performance of revenue executive district officers for failing to decide cases on time.

Mr Unnar said incompetence and poor performance of government functionaries was giving a bad name to the PPP government.

Recalling massive encroachments in Karachi on government land, the PAC chief said that if officials found themselves helpless to initiate action against influential encroachers, they could at least write a note and file it so that such cases could be reopened afterwards.

At the outset, Mr Shamoon conceded that the recovery of government dues was no more a priority of the field staff.

He said in the past if any tapedar failed to recover government dues, he used to be put behind bars and the recovery was made very next day.

He said he did not believe that tapedars failed to recover government dues. This could be true only in between 10 and 20 per cent of cases but in most cases recovery was made from the people but was embezzled by tapedars, he added.

He said over the past two to three years recovery used to be deferred and remission was granted due to natural calamities in some cases. However, he said that it was no excuse for the failure of the revenue staff in recovering government dues.

As far as the issue of encroachments on government land was concerned, the senior revenue official was of the view that not a single brick could be laid without the knowledge of relevant government functionaries.

In reply to a question, he said that the anti-encroachment force had so far retrieved over 4,900 acres of government land.

He requested the PAC to defer the meeting for three months so that the revenue officials could act and show their performance as one month would be a very short period.

Besides, he said, Moharram was approaching fast and most of the revenue staff, including deputy commissioners, would be engaged in the supervision of Moharram processions.

The PAC decided to put off the meeting for two months.

After the meeting the Sindh Audit director-general told newsmen that an amount of Rs2.34 million was recovered out of over Rs316.2 million dues.

According to a working paper presented before the PAC, during the year 2006-7 there was non-realisation of land tax of Rs50.171 million, including Rs31.327 million in the head of abiana, Rs11.710 million other receipts, Rs3.697 million local cess, Rs3.559 million agriculture income tax, Rs2.132 million ushr and Rs0.507 million in the head of land revenue.

In 2007-08, Rs36.832 million abiana, Rs32.099 million agri-income tax, Rs19.641 million land tax, Rs21.976 million local cess, Rs14.274 million capital value tax, Rs6.249 million ushr, Rs1.986 million stamp duty, Rs18.943 million annual rent, Rs0.244 million drainage cess, Rs0.487 million lease money remained non-realised.

According to the audit report for the year 2008-09, revenue officials failed to realize Rs17.114 million in the head of abiana, Rs2.165 million agri-income tax, Rs20.260 million land tax, Rs2.467 local cess, Rs4.724 million capital value tax, Rs1.452 million registration fee, Rs10.088 million stamp duty and Rs2.123 million in the head drainage cess.