Who Owns Pakistan - Yimg
Who Owns Pakistan - Yimg
Who Owns Pakistan - Yimg
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Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will gladly vouch for these powers, since he has<br />
been at both the receiving and giving ends of the CBR.<br />
CBR has the reputation of being corrupt, besides being one of the most<br />
politicized departments of Govt of <strong>Pakistan</strong>. From the office of chairman to<br />
middle and lower ranks, appointments are made in CBR on political and financial<br />
considerations. One frequently comes accross people in Islamabad with offers of<br />
money for appointments or postings in departments under the jurisdiction of<br />
CBR. The amount that these people offer. even for a clerical job in customs,<br />
income tax or other subordinate departments gives a measure of corruption and<br />
graft in CBR.<br />
It is thus, not mere coincidence that the chairman of CBR has invariably been the<br />
first to go with each change of govt since 1988. Benazir Bhutto assumed power<br />
in the last week of December 1988 and Ghulam Yazdani Khan was appointed<br />
the new chairman CBR on January 22, 1989. He was removed on August 10,<br />
1990 within 5 days of Bhutto's dismissal and was later arrested by Nawaz Sharif<br />
govt, ostebsibly on charges of smuggling. But his real crime was initiating<br />
investigations into the allegations of tax evasion by House of Ittefaq.<br />
Nawaz Sharif waited for eight months to bring Sajjad Hassan as CBR chairman<br />
who was dismissed by President Ghulam Ishaq on April 8, 1993, two days after<br />
Nawaz Sharif was dismissed. Kazi Aleem Ullah was appointed the new chairman<br />
on May 3, 1993 who was replaced on July 17, 1993 by a PPP nominee Mobin<br />
Ahsan who, in turn could survive only a week because of reinstatement of Nawaz<br />
Sharif govt by Supreme Court of <strong>Pakistan</strong>.<br />
The successive governments and senior bureaucats have always been<br />
conscious of the corruption plaguing CBR and Kazi Aleem Ullah, in a letter on<br />
May 8, 1993 to members and senior officials of CBR said that " it was extremely<br />
unfortunate that both customs and incom tax services which are the backbone of<br />
federal tax administration enjoy a very poor reputation in public eye. So much so<br />
that these departments are always quoted, in private as well as in public, as<br />
corrupt departments".<br />
Very few people know that according to Federal Service Census Report, 1993,<br />
CBR presently housed in an unassuming building on the Constitution Avenue in<br />
Islamabad is the second biggest employer, among all the federal govt<br />
departments after <strong>Pakistan</strong> Railways, accounting for 12% of the total stregth of<br />
Federal Employees estimated at 1,75,189.<br />
Politics of SROs<br />
The 1973 constitution had clearly provided that " impostion, abolition, remissions,<br />
alteration or regulation of any tax" would fall in the jurisdiction of Finance Bill to<br />
be passed by the National Assembly. But during the Zia ul Haq era when there<br />
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