ISLAMABAD: During the chairman’s briefing, which revealed that more than 1,000 laws would need to be modified in order to operationalize the future split structure, the Senate Standing Committee on Finance expressed strong resistance to the Federal Board of Revenue’s (FBR) reorganization plan, as The News reported on Thursday.
The law ministry’s position that the caretaker administration had the authority to introduce important laws also shocked the senators.
In order to find out if the interim administration had the authority to enact new laws or change existing ones while parliament was not in session, the committee has now resolved to call the acting law minister to the next meeting.
Senator Saadia Abbasi strongly objected to the caretaker’s decision to make such significant revisions to the FBR reorganization plan and requested that the government defer this decision to the next government.
The senator reacted to the briefing regarding the news that was making the rounds in the media regarding FBR’s restructuring.
The FBR chairman said that the necessary changes to the FBR Act were being finalized and validated the reorganization plan.
The motion made by Senator Zarqa Suharwardy to limit government spending on non-development was also addressed by the Senate body.
According to the finance secretary, government spending for the current fiscal year is within budget since the administration is adhering to austerity measures.
The committee instructed the Finance Division to submit information about the budget savings that occurred after the Finance Division notified the public about the austerity measures.
Additionally, the Senate committee voiced concern on a public petition in which a complainant claimed that their family deposited Rs416 million to a Karachi bank in 2017, but the money vanished while they were abroad.
According to SBP Governor Jameel Ahmed, this incident happened as a result of an internal divide. Members of the committee countered that the SBP was defending the bank rather than the depositors. To gather information on the matter, the committee chose to call in the bank chairman, the FIA, SBP, and other law enforcement organizations.The resentful party informed the committee that, in 2017, they had moved the funds to a bank located in Karachi. But when they went to the bank last year to get a withdrawal, the bank told them that they had already taken out the money and closed their account.
