ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Finance has made full preparations to introduce Bill to amend the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947. Similarly, Ministry is also all set to introduce another bill to repeal the Equity Participation Fund Ordinance, 1970.
Both the bills had been very effective in the past and had been introduced with the purpose of streamlining economic sector in the country.
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Sources privy to Finance Minister, disclosed to Customs Today that Ministry had prepared drafts of legislations for above-mentioned purpose and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar was likely to table both the bills in the Lower House of Parliament today (Monday).
These bills will be titled as Foreign Exchange Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2014 and The Equity Participation Fund (Repeal) Bill, 2014 respectively after the amendment and repeal of the latter one.
However, when contacted the officials concerned about possible impact of new legislation on economy, tax collection, small business and other sectors, they declined of having deep insight in this connection.
It is pertinent to note here that that Equity Participation Fund (EPF) meant to promote and accelerate growth of private sector small and medium industrial entrepreneurs.
The EFP was established on January 2, 1970 through an ordinance with a paid up capital of Rs 50 million which was subsequently increased to Rs 155 million. The primary objective of establishing EPF was to foster and accelerate growth of small and medium sized industry in the private sector. The fund was managed and administrated by the Industrial Development Bank of Pakistan (IDBP) in the past.
It is worth mentioning that federal cabinet, in its meeting on June 4, 2008 approved the winding up of EPF. The details for Cabinet’s approval available with this subscribe say that at first step the services of Chartered Accountant would be hired to prepare working papers on the winding up plan of the fund. At second step a winding up plan would be placed before the Board for approval and then AGM clearance would be obtained.
At third step after AGM clearance the liquid assets of the fund would be encashed and proceeds thereof would be distributed among the shareholders in accordance with their holding ratio. Fourthly after completion of all above actions, the matter would be referred to the government for repealing FPF Ordinance to wind up the institution.
