KARACHI, March 8: The Central Board of Revenue has now been transformed into an organic body having institutional approach towards revenue collection. This was stated by the chairman, CBR, Riaz Malik, retiring from March 10, 2004, at a farewell address to customs, sales tax and income tax officers here on Monday.

He said that he faced many challenges during his 32 months tenure as chairman CBR but biggest one was to break the old culture creating atmosphere for free and frank interaction amongst officers of various grades.

Riaz Malik said that in this regard he held around 30 meeting with his staff and suggested that we should all work collectively. He said because of changes he brought about CBR working environment has improved somewhat.

He said the revenue collection at the end of last month stood at Rs312 billion which is 14.8 per cent higher than last year. Consequently, it is Rs14 billion ahead of its target for current fiscal.

Collection up to February 2003, was 58.9 per cent of year end out-turn of Rs460.6 billion. By this yardstick, he said, also, CBR is Rs12 billion ahead. Earlier revenue performance in 2002-03 was historic because never before the initial revenue target was actually achieved by the CBR. The growth was 14 per cent over 2001-02.

Looking into the history, he said Pakistan's revenue collection for the first time crossed Rs10 billion mark in 1974-75 and Rs100 billion mark in 1989-90. The target for 2003-04 is Rs510 billion.

Dr Zulfiqar Ahmad Malik, Additional Collector Customs, Director General Large Tax Payers' Unit Shahid Jamal and Daud Khan Commission Income Tax Corporate Region also spoke on the occasion.