KARACHI: Caretaker Chief Min­ister retired Justice Maqbool Baqar on Sunday said that he had appr­oached the prime minister for early release of Rs 22 billion collected by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) from industries in Sindh in the head of workers welfare fund.

Chairing a meeting held to review the performance of the Sindh Revenue Board (SRB), the CM said that the amount, if returned by the FBR, could be utilised for the betterment of labourers in the province.

According to a press release issued from the CM House on Sunday, the SRB informed the CM that it had obtained 527 payments compared to last year’s 296 payment in the head of the Sindh Workers Welfare Fund (SWWF) and Sindh Workers Profit Participation Fund.

The SRB chairman informed the CM that an increase in the collection of payments was also made despite reduction of sales in the auto sector due to price hike and pharmaceutical sector due to issues in raw material import in particular.

Reviews performance of Sindh Revenue Board

He said that consequent to the directions of the CM, a team had taken prompt actions and issued more than 5,200 notices to various industrial establishments and recovered an amount of Rs7.5bn in the current financial year compared to Rs5.4bn recovered last year.

During the meeting, the CM was informed that 267 show-cause notices “amounting to Rs40bn have been issued to the fund payers against which an amount of Rs6.1bn had been deposited with the nazir of the Sindh High Court (SHC) by banks and other fund payers”.

AG told to get released Rs31bn deposited with SHC nazir

It should be noted that the banking sector had deposited bank guarantees worth Rs5.1bn with the nazir of the Court for the first time against 61 show-cause notices.

At this, the CM directed the Sindh advocate general for early release of the total amount of Rs31bn lying with the SHC nazir as that amount related to the banking industry and other Sindh-based industrial establishments.

Justice Baqar was further informed that in addition to the show-cause notices of Rs40bn, the SRB had issued 303 short payment notices of Rs27bn to various fund payers in compliance with his directives.

The SRB had additionally started recoveries through bank attachment against 80 fund payers in whose cases assessment orders had been passed.

The CM was told that the SRB was making great efforts to take the collection of SWWF and SWPPF to the highest limits.

“The target for the first six months of the current financial year set for SRB was Rs6.3bn against which the SRB collected Rs7.5bn exceeding the target by Rs1.2bn. In total, an amount of Rs7.5bn has been secured which was unprecedented in the province’s history,” the SRB chairman said.

Appeal to avoid aerial firing on New Year

Meanwhile, Sindh Governor Kamran Khan Tesori has appealed to the people to avoid aerial firing on New Year.

He said that the citizens should celebrate the New Year within the law.

He said that the police would take legal action on display of arms and aerial firing, as aerial firing threatens to cost precious human lives. Meanwhile, the governor also congratulated The Democrats for a clean sweep in the Karachi Press Club elections.

“All the members of the Democrats panel deserve congratulations for this achievement,” he said and expressed the hope that all the elected officials would take vigorous steps for the welfare of the journalist community.

Published in Dawn, january 1st, 2024