Talks with IMF in Dubai on June 28

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

ISLAMABAD: The Advisor to Prime Minister on Finance, Shaukat Tarin, has said that talks with International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be held on June 28 in Dubai to review the economic performance of Pakistan along with budgetary measures taken to increase revenue collection in the next fiscal year before the release of third tranche.

The Advisor said this at the post-budget meeting of Senate standing committee on finance here on Tuesday. Senator Ali Ahmed in the chair. IMF was earlier scheduled to release third tranche of about $850 million on June 30, but later announced to release it in July.

During the talks in Dubai, IMF team will review the measures announced by the government of Pakistan in the 2009-10 budget to enhance revenue collection. The review will pave the way for releasing the third tranche. Pakistan, in April had received $848 million as second instalment of a $7.6 billion loan from the IMF under the standby arrangement.

Tarin informed the committee that the economic managers of the country would brief the IMF team about the fiscal measures taken by Pakistan government to meet IMF targets and the targets set in the budget. He said that Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) would conduct audit of taxpayers, at random, and audit officers would not take away the record of a company in the process of audit.

The senate committee proposed that the Advisor to Prime Minister on Finance should be banned from attending post-budget seminars until the budget is approved by National Assembly. The meeting was told that the Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR) would amend the Sales Tax Act to cap the powers of the collectors that cause harassment among the taxpayers. The members of the committee strongly criticised the role of finance managers in preparing budget and complained that they had ignored their budget recommendations while finalising the budget proposals for 2009-10. The members asked the chairman to take up the matter with Senate Chairman and Speaker.

The members regretted that they were the people's representatives but their recommendations were not given due consideration to provide relief to the masses during the upcoming financial year 2009-10. The committee also showed reservations over heavy supplementary grants issued during financial year 2008-09, and proposed that the finance division should hold quarterly budget meeting with Senate standing committee on finance to conduct mid-year budget review.


(BRecorder)