ONCE again the Federal Board of Revenue has been left without a functioning chairman — the second time since news emerged that the government’s financial adviser Hafeez Shaikh showed up at the tax authority’s head office to complain about the continuous shortfalls in revenue collection. This time, as with the last, the FBR chairman said that his leave was for health reasons, and there are no prima facie grounds to doubt his word. But a closer look reveals that the chairman from the private sector, Shabbar Zaidi, is running into growing difficulties in the job. He has the most challenging revenue target to meet that any chairman has had to face in decades. The FBR bureaucracy is doing its best to undermine him at the same time, since it has become famous for not accepting outside leadership or change of any sort. Even before Mr Zaidi took charge in May 2019, a court challenge was mounted against his appointment by an FBR officer who claimed in his petition before the Islamabad High Court that he had a “legitimate expectation for promotion to the post of FBR chairperson, which is the top slot in the hierarchy of his service”. That challenge was thrown out by August, but the resentment of the FBR bureaucracy against the appointment of a private-sector individual to the ‘top slot’ in the revenue authority had been registered. Lately, Mr Zaidi faced more critical questioning about his leadership from Prime Minister Imran Khan as well as the Supreme Court.

It would be an understatement to say that Mr Zaidi has found himself in a hornets’ nest. It is only the sheer depth of his experience and knowledge of the rackets that operate around the country’s revenue system that have held him in good stead through all this. And it is this depth of knowledge and experience that the government badly needs to tap and benefit from when drawing up the next budget, preparations for which should be starting soon. Instead, there are complications. At a time when the revenue machinery is supposed to be developing its own vision for reform as well as pursuing one of the largest and most vigorous exercises for documentation of the economy and broadening the tax base, the FBR seems to be entering into a leadership crisis.

It should be clear to the government, and particularly to the prime minister and his finance team, that a leaderless FBR will not help in their efforts to chase an ambitious revenue target and wage the campaign for documentation, as well as draw up the budget for the coming financial year. While one wishes Mr Zaidi good health at this point, the truth is that he does have something to return to if his stint in government service does not work out. But, as this drama unfolds, what are the government’s plans?

Published in Dawn, February 1st, 2020