ISLAMABAD: Hiring of a US firm for digitisation of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) set off alarm bells in Senate on Monday.

Senator Saadia Abbasi of the PML-N was the first to raise the objection over the feared sharing of crucial FBR data identifying sources of revenues with outsiders.

The objection was raised as a report of a special three-member committee formed to examine money bill seeking to expedite the process of the recovery of over Rs2 trillion held up in litigation before the tribunals and superior courts landed in the House.

Senator Abbasi referred to a news report according to which a proposal by Mckinsey and Co — an American multinational strategy and management consulting firm on FBR’s digitisation. She wondered if there was a dearth of people in Pakistan to do the job.

Shibli slams govt urgency to pass money bill; Irfan Siddiqui denies plans to extend judges’ terms

The senator sought to know as to who had authorised the hiring of Mckinsey and Co while ignoring Public Procure­m­ent Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules and standard operating procedures. She noted that tenders should have been invited and insisted that a single individual could not take such decisions.

She then read out a press release that said Finance Minister Senator Muham­mad Aurangzeb chaired a meeting of the Steering Committee on Digitalisation of FBR, which was attended by ‘key stakeholders’ including the FBR chairman, CEO Karandaz and representatives from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She asked how the Gates Foundation be­­came a key stakeholder in FBR matters.

“It is an NGO which came to Pakistan for macro-financing,” she said. She reg­retted that “agenda of others” was imposed on lawmakers and they were being asked to advance it. She said such things would be detrimental for the country.

Leader of the Opposition in Senate Syed Shibli Faraz also endorsed her views and asked as to what was the urgency to pass the money bill. He said the practice of bulldozing laws must come to an end.

He regretted that bills are passed without discussion in the House. He said just three senators examined the money bill, noting that this was “a sophisticated form of bulldozing legislation”. Minister for Law and Justice Azam Nazeer Tarar, however, advised the lawmakers on the other side of the aisle to avoid opposition for the sake of opposition and instead support the “positive moves” by the government.

The House later adopted the recommendations made by the special committee through a motion moved by Senator Farooq H. Naek.

‘Extension’ denial

PML-N parliamentary leader Senator Irfan Siddiqui also told the Senate on Monday that there was no plan to give extension to judges. He was responding to the concerns expressed by PTI lawmaker Aon Abbas, who had claimed the legislation was on the cards to extend the tenure of judges.

“We are going to become a rubber-stamp to define the term of judiciary, but the PTI will not become part of it”, the PTI senator had said. He also slammed the campaign against Islamabad High Court judge Justice Babar Sattar.

Denying any move to extend the term of judges, Senator Siddiqui also termed as unfortunate the trend of mudslinging on judges and said it was condemnable.

Meanwhile, JUI-F’s Maulana Attaur Rehman decried that Khyber Pakhtunwhwa was deprived of full representation in the Senate unlike other provinces and wanted to know what was its crime. “Is it not a crime to add to sense of deprivation of the province?” he asked. He also recalled his party’s stance that it neither accepted the results of 2018 elections nor 2024 polls.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2024