MULTAN: The anti-benami zone of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is facing hardship in collecting benami properties from the district administration of Multan, Dawn has learnt.

In November last, the FBR established the Anti Benami Initiative Directorate General after the federal government operationalized Benami Transaction (Prohibition), Act, 2017 to counter white-collar crime and established such zones in Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore while the district administration headed by the deputy commissioner was directed by the government to detect benami bank accounts and properties and hand over the details to respective zone till 30.

Sources said a couple of months back, the district administration identified only 36 benami properties in the district, of which 20 were in the tehsil city, 12 in Sadder and four in Shujabad.

They said that instead of sending complete information, the deputy commissioner office sent vogue information to the Lahore zone which called the information insufficient.

Vital information like computerized national identity card numbers, exact location of properties, and revenue document, including ownership document and registration deed, were missing.

FBR authorities asked the district administration to provide the detailed information of properties to respective focal persons who were appointed by the FBR at each district to coordinate with the district administration.

They said the zonal office directed focal person Saira Khan, to contact the district administration and ensure the provision of required information, who held a meeting the DC and other revenue officers on January 11 and DC Aamer Khattak directed his staff to provide the CNIC numbers to the FBR.

They said that meanwhile authorities from zonal office also contacted the DC office and sought the list of benami properties with detailed information and required documents, but to no avail.

They said that zonal office also informed the chief secretary that they were facing hardship to get list with required information from district administration Multan.

FBR coordinator on benami properties Arslan Qadoos Bukhari said that a meeting with district administration was held where the administration promised to provide the list with required information but so far the list with required information was not provided.

Additional Deputy Commissioner Revenue Tayyab Khan said that the assistant commissioners have been directed to provide the required information and soon the task will achieved the list will be provided to the FBR.

Published in Dawn, February 1st, 2020