KOHAT: The tehsil municipal administration and cantonment board of Kohat have not paid any tax for the last 15 years, according to officials of excise and taxation department.

Tariq Masood, assistant director excise and taxation department, told Dawn on Thursday that tehsil municipal administration (TMA) had to pay Rs6.9 million as tax while the cantonment board was defaulter of Rs5.5 million. They had not contributed a penny to the national exchequer for the last 15 years, he added.

“I have visited the cantonment board executive officer and station headquarters for the recovery of money but they always make lame excuses that they have no budget for tax payment,” Mr Masood said.

Both the entities have not paid tax for the last 15 years: officials

Sources said that the cantonment board was collecting tax from the people in the area regularly every year and in some cases every month. “If anybody defaults, he is threatened to be expelled from the area.” They added.

Sources said that Kohat TMA, the second richest municipal body in the entire Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after Peshawar, had not been paying tax for the last more than 20 years. The TMA also collected tax regularly from the owners of markets and shops in its limits, they said, adding that it didn’t spare even the handcart owners.

Mr Masood said that they had collected so far Rs17 million as tax from the people in less than fortnight. There were people, who had been paying bribe to the excise and taxation inspectors to evade tax, he added. He said that excised and taxation department had constituted jirgas of the local elders to persuade them to pay tax.

The official said that they were exempting those businessmen, who were poor and had serious patients in their homes, from tax on humanitarian grounds. The number of such businessmen was 35, he added.

Mr Masood said that they would achieve their target within few weeks. He requested the people to fulfil their national obligation by paying tax.

PHC BENCH: The lawyer’s action committee has demanded establishment of Peshawar High Court bench in the district.

The lawyers said that they would observe token strike from Friday for acceptance of their demand.

The decision was taken in a meeting of lawyers that was attended by president of action committee Masoodur Rehman, chairman Samiullah Khan, secretary general Zahid Iqbal, senior vice president Faraz, Fawad Hussain, Fiasal Faizi and Rohit Kamar.

The participants of the meeting said that they set one-month deadline to lawmakers to pass a bill in the provincial assembly for establishment of high court bench in Kohat.

They said that after the passage of bill in the assembly, the high court bench would require the approval of Supreme Court of Pakistan.

They said that those who had promised to bring change in the province had failed to pass the bill. They said that chief minister also ignored their demand. They said that every big city had a high court bench but Kohat was neglected for unknown reasons.

The lawyers said that people were facing great difficulties in reaching Peshawar on time to attend the proceedings of their cases in the high court. The biggest problem was security on Darra Adamkhel-Mattani portion of Peshawar Road, they said.

Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2014