ISLAMABAD: State Minister for Finance and Revenue, Ayesha Ghaus Pasha highlighted the importance of structural reforms and policy decisions to make the country flood-resilient and cope with the challenges posed by the climate change.
The Committee met under the chairmanship of Qasier Ahmed Sheikh, Member National Assembly (MNA) to discuss the various issues pertaining to ministry and its attached departments.
Briefing the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue, she said that the country was facing a painful situation after floods however added that government recently had taken some hard decisions to cope with the situation and help improve the overall economy.
The minister said that due to the recent floods, almost 9 million of country’s population has gone below poverty line.
She said the floods have also damage economy adding the country’s total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is likely to come down to 2 percent during the current fiscal year (2022-23) owing to recent floods that had badly hit-the country.
She said the government has had fruitful discussions with all stakeholders regarding economic situation of country after massive monsoon flooding.
The committee was told that 30 billion dollars economic cost to Pakistan has been estimated by multilateral institutions due to recent floods. It was estimated that Pakistan’s financial needs will be around 15 to 16 billion dollars.
Multilateral institutions have been receptive to the economic situation of Pakistan and talks are ongoing for frontloading certain programmes. A positive response from Multilateral institutions such as Asian Development Bank, World Bank and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is anticipated
She said that Planning Commission and World Bank were working together to estimate total losses inflicted by the recent floods, which currently have been assessed to be around $ 30 billion.
Ayesha Ghaus Pasha maintained that the government had so far spent Rs120 billion to provide immediate relief to the flood-hit people. These include Rs 25,000 per family through income support programme and Kissan relief package of Rs 600 billion.
Meanwhile, the committee was informed that Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had not been able to achieve Sales Tax and Custom Duty targets due to import compression.
There has been an increase in income tax target collection however sales tax and custom duty targets have not been achieved. The main cause is due to import compression (of about 16.9 percent till end of October for current fiscal year).
Additionally, the committee was also told that as of yet, 2.581 million tax filers have submitted returns opposed to 3.6 million filers last time (although time in filing returns is still remaining).
The committee showed its concern regarding lack of increase in tax filers and taxes being taken from existing filers only. The committee also showed its apprehension regarding tax regime in flood inundated areas such as Khairpur.
