Recovery cases of Rs 5 trn pending due to stay orders, says PAC

ISLAMABAD: Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday said that the recovery cases worth of Rs 5 trillion were pending before courts due to stay orders and its recovery should be ensured by taking into account all stakeholders.

The Committee also decided to convene a meeting on May 11 to further discuss the case.

"It is a matter of national interest which should be resolved as early as possible", Chairman of the committee, Syed Khursid Shah said.

He said that keeping in view the importance of the matter, all stakeholders including senior lawyers, high officials of Federal Board of Revenue, Auditor General of Pakistan, Minister for Law would be invited to the meeting.

Besides, Speaker National Assembly, Chairman Senate, Minister for Law and Justice Zahid Hamid and Senator Aitezaz Ahsan would also be requested to attend the meeting.

Earlier, the committee reviewed and discussed audit paras of FBR for the year 2013-14. Briefing the committee, FBR chairman Dr Muhammad Irshad told the committee that FBR was facing immense problems due to prolong stay orders in recovery cases and sought the parliament support and legislation in this regard.

He said recovery process has already been expedited and steps were being taken to pursue cases in light of PAC direction.

He said high courts and other courts were requested to constitute special benches to hear the cases.

He said a software has also been prepared to monitor tax collection.

The PAC directed the Chairman FBR to ensure holding of departmental audit committee meetings in time and took stern action against responsible officials for their failure to recover public money.

Dr Irshad said earlier there was no legal wing in FBR and services of competent lawyers were hired to pursue the cases.

Mehmood Khan Achakzai was of the view that FBR was unable to recover the amount during the last five years.

He said the audit report reflected that no action was taken against anyone for their failure.

The Chairman FBR said an amount of Rs 25 billion has been recovered during last two months and overall recovery stood at 94per cent.

He said FBR took assistance of various organizations including NADRA, SECP etc for recovery but the tax collector could not block CNIC of any citizen.

However, he said blocking of CNIC would help a lot in recovery of public money.