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Interest rate may be slashed by 200bps: Haroon

Haroon Akhtar Khan, former special assistant to prime minister on revenue has said that some people in the current setup like to see him appointed as chairman of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) instead of SAPM, which was not acceptable to him.

This, he stated while speaking at Aaj TV programme “Paisa Bolta Hai” with Anjum Ibrahim.

Khan also said that owing to changed external conditions on account of coronavirus and the decline in oil prices, the government can re-negotiate the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme and cut down the interest rate by 200 basis points.

He said that Prime Minister Imran Khan had invited him to give unbiased view on economy, especially related to businesses and ground realities.

“I went as a patriotic Pakistani citizen,…while seeing that the PM has a vision to turn around the country and the economy,” said Khan, adding that, he went for presentation and discussion, and not seeking a job at all.

However, Akhtar said, the prime minister offered him a position at the meeting, but he was not prepared to say yes or no at that time.

Akhtar further said that the prime minister was informed that if he wanted take work from him, reporting line needs to be clear because.

“I do not want to go around with files in hands and not achieve the target, given to me,” Akhtar said, adding that he informed the prime minister that his job should be result-oriented and reforms focused.

“Later, I got some information that the current set up would rather like to have me as chairman FBR. I had told the prime minister that there is no way he could accept the slot of chairman FBR,” Akhtar said, adding that it was his old view that the FBR chairman should be from the FBR and on top of that there should be a full-time dedicated minister on revenue as finance minister do not have due time required for FBR.

“So I cannot back away from my position,” he added.

Replying to a question, Akhtar said that the SAPM was at a higher level than chairman FBR, the later is being appointed through FBR Act 2007.

But in this act, it has been stated that the federal government will appoint chairman FBR on terms and conditions that may be determined by the federal government and there is no such explanations that what the terms would be.

The SAPM with the status of minister attends all cabinet meetings; however chairman FBR can attend meetings only on invitation and on a specific subject relating to him.

He can direct elaborate what are the reasons behind the shortfall in revenue it is critical to be SAPM rather than chairman FBR, he added.

There should be a minister who could shield the chairman FBR from political pressure and all sort of pressure from the Public Accounts Committee and other parliamentary committees that he may fully focus on revenue collection, Akhtar added.

Talking about agreed high revenue target with the IMF, he said that he had a lot of respect for the SBP governor and the adviser on finance but when people do know about the ground realities then they accept such conditions.

Two serious conditions on economy were accepted, one was high discount rate, and second was the FBR revenue target of Rs5.5 trillion, said Akhtar, adding that these two were blunders.

The government informed the IMF that they have tax growth of 15 percent of GDP, while 20 percent was additional tax imposed on the IMF demand, and was informed of 43 percent growth in revenue.

But, how much such measures would impact economy, said Akhtar, adding that despite all these, how can one think about getting five percent GDP growth.

He further said Shabbar Zaidi was the top tax consultant in Pakistan, and that does not necessarily means, he would be the best tax collector, and that is the one reason he could not perform the way he was expected to.

He said that reforms go hand-in-hand with revenue collection, and reform stream should be totally separate.


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