ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has decided to attach performance evaluation of all taxation employees with Integrity Management by taking into account Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs), complaints if any, disciplinary proceedings and corruption cases against the tax machinery.
The FBR’s Integrity and Performance Management Unit (I&PMU) has been assigned the task of linking the performance evaluation with Integrity Management of the tax employees. Details revealed that FBR Chairman Tariq Bajwa constituted a committee comprising Member HRM, Member IR Policy, Member IT and Member Taxpayer Audit to evaluate the proposals regarding Integrity Management Unit presented by Member HRM and come up with its recommendations. The FBR chairman wants that performance management of the employees should also be taken into account for internal control and accountability. He proposed that the board must come up with institutional arrangements for assessing both the integrity and performance of its employees on the basis of certain laid down criteria and suggested Performance and Integrity Management Unit in this regard.
In the last meeting, the committee not only agreed with all the contents of earlier proposal of Integrity Management Unit, which was presented before Board-in-Council, but also endorsed the proposal of the board chairman that performance evaluation of employees of FBR should be linked with Integrity Management. The committee also discussed and recommended that this Unit should have access to complaints against employees of FBR, otherwise, it would be ineffective. The Committee discussed and agreed on the name of the unit as “Integrity and Performance Management Unit (I&PMU)”.
The committee discussed ways for consistent and sustained performance evaluation of the employees that would effectively be linked with their integrity management and recommended that I&PMU should also be entrusted with the jobs including access to MPRs and PERs, examination of MPRs, key Performance Indicators and all performance related documents, cross matching of MPRs and PERs of employees. In case of exaggerated evaluation, the reporting officer to be held responsible.
The committee unanimously maintained that performance evaluation of employees should be tangible, substantive, and judicious. The Committee identified that all posts in the field formations and at FBR Headquarters are not identical to jobs assigned and therefore their Performance Indicators (PIs) differ from each other. Performance of some posts can be evaluated tangibly and others not. Therefore, the Committee recommended that it may be made mandatory for all the reporting officers to send Monthly Performance Reports of their subordinates on job disposal, discipline, punctuality and professionalism to Integrity and Performance Management Unit (I&PMU). This would serve two purposes.
The committee agreed that Annual Confidential Reports of employees should be written in unbiased, transparent and judicious manner. In order to streamline the system of Performance Evaluation the Committee recommended the following: Firstly, it may be made mandatory for reporting and counter-signing officers to ensure that ACRs of their subordinates are written in due time/real time failing which adverse evaluation of their performance would be indicated in their own dossiers.
