ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has shared a list of 10,000 corporate companies with Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) to check out their current status. According to SECP Chairman Zafar Hijazi, these companies had not filed their income tax returns. Out of 10,000, around 7000 to 7500 companies are still operational with the SECP but are not on the list of the income tax filers of the FBR.
While responding to a question asked by the Chairperson Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue Nasreen Jalil, regarding reason for non filing of income tax returns by 75% corporate companies registered with SECP, Hijazi made this disclosure, in the meeting to discus the Securities Bill 2015.
He added that SECP had also activated the State Bank of Pakistan to counter check the status of the said companies whether they were making bank transactions or not and if they were doing then why not filing income tax returns.
He said that the existing SECP Law 1969 was insufficient to cater the requirements of key monetary regulator therefore the new law with authorities and powers to SECP is a must to regulate the money market of the country.
He recalled that SECP had been declared the best performing money regulator of the world within three years of its establishment, but with the passage of time, interference from the executive made it dysfunctional and ultimately weakened it which led stock exchange scams in the country.
Moreover, he said that former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, sacked then SECP Chairman Tariq Hassan on a phone call of a broker against whom Tariq Hassan had initiated an investigation. “It was a matter of shame for the entire nation because a competent officer was not only sacked but also disgraced by not letting him to collect his personal belongings from his office” he further added.
He observed that due to week law the toothless SECP was not able to place iron hands against the plunderers of the public money. “Currently, there are three to four major cases lying pending with SECP against major companies, but SECP is not initiating legal procedure in those cases just because of the fear of loosing the cases” Hijazi observed.
He further apprised the committee that with an objective of regulating the internal procedure of posting and operational mechanism, the SECP had moved draft of legislation of SECP Act which was pending with the Council of Common Interests (CCI). “After getting the said law approved by the CCI, it will be laid before the parliament for legislation” he said.
During briefing about the Securities Bill 2015, the committee members hurled criticism on SECP Chairman for remaining inactive and moving the bill after passage of lot of time to get an effective law to regulate the money market.
However, all of the members were unanimous in their view that bill should be approved as early as possible. At this the Chairperson asked the members to go through the bill and come up with their recommendations regarding amendments in the bill in black and white.
