PBS says Nadra has record of only 125 million population and is clueless about 70 million
ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Finance on Wednesday unanimously recommended the government to waive off General Sales Tax (GST) on electricity bills for households.
It was also disclosed before the parliamentary panel that around 70 million people were missing from Nadra’s data which showed total registered person up to only 125 million including 105 million adults and 20 million children against roughly estimated population of 196 million in the country.
“Nadra is clueless about 70 million people as its data showed such large number of people as missing from official records,” Chief Statistician, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), Asif Bajwa, told the Senate panel here at the Parliament House.
“We have recommended to the government to waive GST on electricity bills for households,” Chairman Senate Standing Committee Saleem Mandviwalla said during the committee meeting on the point raised by MQM Senator Syed Tahir Hussain Mashhadi. The senators had raised the issue of multiple taxes on electricity bills and then surcharges are also slapped to burden household consumers. Chairman FBR Nisar Mohamad Khan explained that the taxes including GST, further tax and extra tax was collected by the FBR through bills but collection of surcharges had nothing to do with the FBR.
Senator Mashhadi had raised this issue during question hour session and the Minister for Water and Power had conceded in his written reply that the FBR had imposed GST, extra tax and further tax on electricity bills. Then the Chairman Senate had referred this issue to Finance Committee to deliberate upon this issue and recommend a solution to the House.
Chairman FBR Nisar Mohammad Khan said that further tax could be levied on registered person who were selling goods to unregistered persons. He conceded that the indirect taxes would have negative impact on lives of common people.
Senator Mohsin Aziz belonging to PTI and Senator Kamil Ali Agha from PML-Q argued that the industrialists could get input adjustments but the households consumers of electricity were easy prey to this unjustified taxation system.
Chairman FBR replied that the ratio of direct taxes was increasing as it increased from 38 percent to 41 percent in recent years. But the Senators persisted in their arguments that there was no justification of GST and other surcharges on electricity bills. After a long debate, the Senate panel unanimously recommended the government to abolish GST on electricity bills.
PBS on population census: On the resolution moved by PPP senator Sassui Palijo, the committee decided to grant last time deferment of issue on the request of the mover. However, some other senators including Fateh Mohammad Hassni from PPP and Senator Nasreen Jalil from the MQM raised some issues on representation of provinces on Governing Council of PBS and holding of population census in the country.
Chief Statistician Asif Bajwa told the committee that rules for PBS were under submission before the Governing Council for approval, indicating that several years have passed and the PBS was running without having proper rules.
He said that all provinces had representation on Governing Council and representation from Fata and G-B was under consideration. On population census, he said that the civilian side was ready to undertake population census exercise but the Army was not prepared to spare required number of troops for this exercise because of its engagements in Zarb-e-Azb.
Then the proposal of holding census in phases and staggered manner also came under discussion but the Army was not willing to accept the proposal, he added.
Senator Fateh Mohammad Hassni said that there were 15 million foreigners living in Pakistan so the government will have to tackle the issue of counting the aliens living in our country.
To a question as to why Nadra could not count population despite undertaking verification exercise at the moment, the Chief Statistician PBS replied that the Nadra’s data was showing 70 million people less as the record showed the population of 125 million against estimated 196 million people. The verification exercise could not be an alternate to census exercise, he added.