QUETTA: Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of the Balochistan Assembly Mir Akhtar Hussain Langove has ordered the excise department to collect property tax from various institutions within three months.

Speaking during a meeting of PAC on Excise and Taxation Department’s Audit Paras for 2018-19 and Compliance Report for 2017-18, he said the department was the largest revenue collecting agency in Balochistan.

He asked the authorities to bring record of locked or demolished property in the next meeting to set revenue / income targets.

Mr Langove said that property tax had not been collected from the cantonment board so far. He ordered the authorities to concerned to issue a three-month notice to the cantonment board to deposit the property tax within the stipulated time.

“Write letters to all the institutions in the light of PAC guidelines. We want to see who does not follow the PAC guidelines. The Excise and Taxation director general should refrain from spending money more than his discretion. Why not survey 26 places in the city which are being shown as locked or demolished by the department?” he said.

Speaking on the occasion, MPA Sanaullah Baloch said that the Excise and Taxation Department could collect a lot of revenue for the province.

The excise and taxation secretary said that the revenue targets were set by the Finance Department itself for which “we are not consulted. We have written several letters to the Cantonment Board but received no reply,” he said.

MPAs Malik Naseer Ahmad Shahwani and Mir Zabid Ali Reki, the Balochistan Assembly Secretary, director general audit and the secretaries of Excise and Taxation, Law Department, Finance Department and Development Department attended the meeting.

Published in Dawn, April 17th, 2021