ISLAMABAD: Vacant posts, delayed promotions and lack of qualified officers are major hurdle in meeting the revenue collection target by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). Currently, some 21 posts of grade 21 and 35 posts of grade 20 are lying vacant only in Inland Revenue Department.
Sources told Customs Today that the FBR was preparing for the upcoming meeting of the Central Selection Board scheduled to be held from January 9-12. On the basis of the preparations, the Chairman FBR will present recommendations to the Chairman Central Selection Board which is also Chairman of the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC).
The Central Selection Board is meeting after almost one year because previous meeting was held in February 2016. Normally, Board meets after every six months to review the promotion related issues of the officers; however, this time, it could not meet due certain issues and problems.
“In the promotion process normally those officers are given priority who may have been selected by the board in the past but their promotion may have been deferred,” the sources said, adding that the vacant posts would be filled with the promotion of officers and it would enhance the working capacity of the Inland Revenue for meeting the revenue collection target.
The sources said that the FBR faced shortage of qualified officers for the promotion because majority of officers were not sent for National Management Course (NMC) and Senior Management Course (SMC) which was the essential criteria for promotion to grade 21 and 20, respectively. Therefore, posts remain vacant. On the other hand, the source said that situation in the other department was quite different as number of qualified officers often remained double to the vacant posts.
The sources said that FBR did not possess power to nominate officers for NMC and SMC because selection of officers was done by the Establishment Division. Therefore, the officers of FBR have made pledge to the government and Chairman FBR to send more and more officers for said courses to fill all the vacant posts.
litigation is another reason for delayed promotions and vacant posts at FBR, the sources said, adding that the lengthy procedures of decision making on the pleas and petitions filed by the officers against each other at the Federal Service Tribunal (FST) had also hand-cuffed the FBR from showing performance in the revenue collection.
