LAHORE: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has dismissed 29 officials on charges of inefficiency and misconduct in the past one year, including seven officers, amid resistance from within the tax machinery and the politicians to an ongoing cleansing move.
The authorities have started making some progress on disciplinary cases – some of them have been pending for more than eight years due to strong backing that these allegedly corrupt officers receive from within the system.
The FBR’s integrity drive that was limited to only the low-grade staff till a year ago has finally targeted high-ranked officers despite resistance from within the headquarters, according to the sources.
The FBR’s data showed that since July last year, it had dismissed 29 officials from service. These include one grade-20 officer, two grade-19 officers, four grade-18 officers and 15 grade-16 officials, according to the official record.
There were also seven low-grade officers who were removed by their respective heads and appealed to FBR Member Administration Mohammad Bakhtiar. But their appeals were dismissed by the member administration. There are about 156 disciplinary cases that have been pending for years despite a commitment by Prime Minister Imran Khan to weed out corrupt people from the FBR.
In most cases, the charges of corruption and inefficiency have been proved against these officials. Some of them have obtained stay orders and others have used their connections to avoid a major penalty of dismissal from service.
One dismissal case in grade 21, five in grade 20, nine in grade 19, 10 in grade 18, 11 in grade 17 and 120 in grade 16 are pending for final decision.
A summary for removal from service of one grade-21 officer is pending with the Establishment Division for onward transmission to the Prime Minister’s Office, according to the FBR officials.
