Privatisation of state units to take eight years

Asad Umar vows to club taxes in next federal budget

LAHORE: Finance Minister Asad Umar has termed the country’s political as well as bureaucratic circles inexperienced in terms of examining and implementing the privatisation policy.

Addressing the business community during his visit to different chambers of commerce in Lahore on Monday, he said the government was looking to introduce an open market mechanism in the energy sector to minimise the burden.

“It will take around eight years to privatise the entire list of institutions as for the past 25 years no proper work has been done in this regard and our entire machinery is not trained enough to execute such transactions.”

The finance minister pledged to club taxes to facilitate businessmen, who were paying a large number of taxes, adding the business community would be given the facility in the next federal budget.

He stressed the need for building trust between the government and business community as in the 21st century the private sector would lead the economy while the government would act as a facilitator.

Responding to a question, Umar said interest rate was a matter handled by the central bank and savings were necessary for sustainable economic development.

Privatisation Commission fails to appoint advisers

“Last year, savings were only 10.4%, which were very low. Its rate should be 25% to 28% in order to achieve the annual growth target of 7%.”

The minister said development of the information technology sector was important and for that a task force had been formed. He announced that a package would soon be unveiled for the IT sector.

He revealed that the Privatisation Commission had been asked to work full throttle on loss-making public-sector enterprises.

Speaking on the occasion, Minister of State for Revenue Hammad Azhar said standard operating procedures (SOPs) were being developed for the issuance of tax-exemption certificates. Raids on business premises had been ceased and SOPs were being framed in that regard, he said.

Azhar pointed out that the Tax Reforms Implementation Committee was active while tax policy and tax administration were being separated.

Federal Board of Revenue Chairman Jahanzeb Khan said reforms in the FBR were one of the top priorities of the government for trust-building. “Very few people pay taxes, however, we have managed to collect data and are now trying to bring all influential people under the tax net, which our data suggests are tax evaders,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29^th, 2019.

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