LAHORE: Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif has criticised the government for what he calls fudging revenue figures in a bid to show its performance on the economic front.

“The Accountant General of Pakistan’s objection to release of Rs140 billion to the Federal Board of Revenue has exposed the credibility of the official economic statistics,” Mr Shehbaz said here on Sunday in a reference to a report which stated that the tax refund money was not excluded from the revenue by the FBR leading to the objection by the authority responsible for reporting federal government’s transactions.

“The AGP is demanding that the government show as revenue loss the payments made as tax refunds,” he added.

The disclosure that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-led government had made financial adjustments worth Rs100 billion last year in the same fashion exposed that the ruling party was continuously involved in fudging figures, said Mr Sharif, who is also president of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.

Says AGP’s objection has exposed the credibility of official statistics

“The government is hoodwinking the masses by employing the tactic of using grants to show an increase in the tax revenue,” he added.

He said the government was doing the same with the national kitty and revenues what it had done with wheat flour and sugar production figures and cautioned that the country might face crisis after crisis if planning of various projects and policies was made on the basis of ‘manipulated’ statistics.

The opposition leader also warned that the manipulated statistics could lead to distrust and disputes between the federation and federating units because of less share to the provinces than the apparent size of federal tax collections and this would not be a good thing.

“Whether the government wishes to pitch the federation and federating units against each other,” he wondered, adding that on one the hand the government had failed to achieve its tax revenue target and, on the other, it put forward a figure that was disputed.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2021