ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Finance expressed its annoyance on Thursday over payment of a hefty amount in salary and other perks to members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on an ad hoc basis for the last five years without any formal approval by the finance ministry.

The committee was informed by officials of the Accountant General of Pakistan Revenue (AGPR) that from June 2011 to April 2016 three members of the ECP had been given Rs102.09 million in salary and allowances/perks while one member had been paid Rs104 million under these heads. The TA and DA and medical bills of these four ECP members amounted to Rs6.95 million and Rs1.76 million, respectively.

The AGPR officials told the committee that there was no violation of rules as salary and other perks were being paid regularly and there had not been any objection from the finance ministry to the matter.

He said the law also allowed the AGPR to release salary for a short term of three months, but since there had not been any formal approval by the finance ministry for the last five years, an ad hoc permission for grant of salary/perks was issued after every three months and this had been the situation for the last five years.

“We have informed the finance ministry several times but there has not been any objection from it,” the official said.

The finance ministry representative present on the occasion informed the committee that there had not been any correspondence with the AGPR regarding the matter, and showed a letter written by the ECP determining itself the salary package of the ECP members.

The matter remained inclusive and will be discussed in next meetings of the committee.

Speaking on another agenda item, officials of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) told the committee that Pakistan would become a signatory to multilateral convention on mutual tax matters to combat tax evasion from August 31, 2016.

Briefing the committee, FBR Member of Inland Revenue Rahmitullah Wazir said that some legal measures would be taken in the financial bill of the next fiscal year to comply with the requirement of Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to become member of a convention on tax matters.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2016

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