FBR employees call off strike

KARACHI: Employees of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) have ended their strike which had been called to protest against not being given 50 per cent ad hoc allowance in salaries.

Member Direct Taxes FBR Israr Rauf, talking to The Express Tribune, said the strike caused a loss of Rs5 billion in one day.

In the budget, the government announced a 50 per cent ad hoc allowance in basic salary for government employees but after objections by the Finance Division its implementation was stopped in case of employees of the FBR.

Consequently, more than 26,000 employees of the FBR went on a strike. Staff of the Regional Tax Office (RTO) Karachi also stopped work for two hours and the strike continued for two days.

After talks between Member FBR Direct Taxes Israr Rauf and an action committee of the employees, Rauf assured the committee that the 50 per cent raise in salaries will be made.

He said if the government raised any objection, the FBR will provide funds for the allowance from its resources.

The action committee also received a letter from the FBR head which gave the assurance of pay raise for all employees and said the matter would be resolved till August 10.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2010.