CBR strongly contradicts press reports
By Ali Imran

ISLAMABAD—Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has taken a strong exception of news item, appeared in a section of the English press and termed them "self cooked stories and an deliberate attempt to undermine the unprecedented performance shown by CBR in the last couple of years on account of revenue collection through implementation of reforms agenda ".
A Spokesman of the CBR said that the total revenue collections which were in the vicinity of Rs. 300 billions few years back have crossed Rs. 712 billion in 2005-06 which perhaps have got its critics worried. Contradicting the news item, the spokesman categorically stated that contrary to the report, all necessary arrangements have been finalised to roll out three Regional Tax Offices (RTOs) at Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Abbottabad by December 31, 2006, as originally planned.
With regard to the commissioning of remaining nine RTOs, three will become operational by March and another four by June, next year, as envisioned. However, the RTOs at Multan and Quetta are likely to be little delayed and expected to be rolled out by September, 2007 instead of June.
In case of RTO, Multan, the bid for award of contract had to be advertised four times due to non-receipt of any responsive bid. In case of RTO at Quetta, the building was set ablaze during recent agitations by some miscreants when the work was in progress. As a result, the refurbishing of the building has to be done all over again. As far as appointment of consultants for reform programme is concerned, the spokesman clarified that it actually follows from the strategy document and obliges the time lines.
The Program Manager and Communication Consultant have been hired, as per requirement of the Tax Administration Reform Programme (TARP). Communication Consultant shares the responsibility of developing and implementing the media strategy together with the existing team of reform project. Regarding procurement of vehicles, the spokesman informed that the Project has allocated $ 3 million for procurement of operational vehicles. Out of this amount, 43 vehicles were purchased in the 1st phase at a total cost of Rs. 52 million which were deployed on operational duties.
Contrary to the news item, the TARP does envisage the co-location of Customs and Sales Tax. The Income Tax and Sales Tax operations are, however, being co-located at RTOs according to the reform strategy, he added. Commenting on articles, referred to in para-I, the spokesman regretted that in the article on: "A sordid story of inefficiency", the reporter totally relied on the Dawns above mentioned imaginary news item of December 10.
He did not even bother to change the words and sequence of the story which, the spokesman believes, was against all norms of healthy journalism. He asked the concerned writer to get the Press reports verified from the relevant quarter whenever he wishes to use them in his articles. The spokesman said that the author of the articles tried to mislead the readers by stating that CBR is achieving revenue collection targets at the cost of withholding genuine refunds.
He said that this statement is factually incorrect and legally untenable for the reason that claim of refund by the taxpayers and its issuance is a continuous process which goes on throughout the year.