ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s tax collection agency has decided to launch a track and trace system from November that will focus on tobacco, cement, sugar and fertilizer industries to enhance the government’s revenue and curb smuggling of illicit goods, officials said on Wednesday.
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will initially use the system to monitor the four major economic areas where counterfeiting, tax evasion and smuggling are thought to be highest in the country.
Pakistan has been struggling to digitize its trade to boost its revenue and support its fragile economy. After years of court cases and departmental wrangling, the FBR is finally working on the system and wants to roll it out with the help of an international company.
The track and trace system involves implementation of a robust, nationwide electronic monitoring system of production volumes by affixation of more than five billion tax stamps on various products to shadow their flow throughout the supply chain.
“We will be able to roll out this system by the end of November,” Nadeem Rizvi, an FBR spokesperson, told Arab News. “Production and sale of such items will be documented and reported to the board automatically.”
The FBR signed a contract with a consortium, AJCL, and its lead partners, Authentix Inc. of the USA and Mitas Corporation of South Africa, in March this year to operationalize “Track & Trace Solution,” though its implementation got delayed due to a case in the Sindh High Court.
The court has now dismissed the petition filed against the activation of the new mechanism.
Officials say the system would help the FBR bring 45 million tons of cement, more than four billion sticks of tobacco cigarettes, over four million tons of sugar, and more than 30 million tons of fertilizer into the tax net.
Experts said the implementation of the system would be a “game changer” in documenting the country’s major economic activities, help improve revenue forecasting and check counterfeit products in the market.
“The system will help the local industry, consumers and the government,” Shabbar Zaidi, a former FBR chairman, told Arab News. “Everyone will benefit from it.”
Zaidi said the smuggling and counterfeiting of various products was hurting the local industry and making the government lose billions of rupees annually in revenue.
“The system will enable the FBR to monitor production and sales of key products and collect actual taxes that could run into billions of rupees,” he added.
Pakistan to roll out track and trace system to help tax collection, digitize economy
https://arab.news/4yqu6
Pakistan to roll out track and trace system to help tax collection, digitize economy
- The system will initially be used to monitor four major economic sectors where counterfeiting, tax evasion and smuggling remain rife
- It will help bring 45 million tons of cement, four billion cigarette sticks, four million tons of sugar and 30 million tons of fertilizer into the tax net
Pakistan opposition to continue protest over ex-PM Khan’s health amid conflicting reports
- Pakistan’s government insists that the ex-premier’s eye condition has improved
- Khan’s personal doctor says briefed on his condition but cannot confirm veracity
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s opposition alliance on Monday vowed to continue their protest sit-in at parliament and demanded “clarity” over the health of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, following conflicting medical reports about his eye condition.
The 73-year-old former cricket star-turned-politician has been held at the high-security Adiala prison in Rawalpindi since 2023. Concerns arose about his health last week when a court-appointed lawyer, Barrister Salman Safdar, was asked to visit Khan at the jail to assess his living conditions. Safdar reported that Khan had suffered “severe vision loss” in his right eye due to central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO), leaving him with just 15 percent sight in the affected eye.
On Sunday, a team of doctors from various hospitals visited the prison to examine Khan’s eye condition, according to the Adiala jail superintendent, who later submitted his report in the court. On Monday, a Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice Yahya Afridi observed that based on reports from the prison authorities and the amicus curiae, Khan’s “living conditions in jail do not presently exhibit any perverse aspects.” It noted that Khan had “generally expressed satisfaction with the prevailing conditions of his confinement” and had not sought facilities beyond the existing level of care.
Having carefully perused both reports in detail, the bench observed that their general contents and the overall picture emerging therefrom are largely consistent. The opposition alliance, which continued to stage its sit-in for a fourth consecutive day on Monday, held a meeting at the parliament building on Monday evening to deliberate on the emerging situation and discuss their future course of action.
“The sit-in will continue till there is clarity on the matter of [Khan's] health,” Sher Ali Arbab, a lawmaker from Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party who has been participating in the sit-in, told Arab News, adding that PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan and Opposition Leader in Senate Raja Nasir Abbas had briefed them about their meeting with doctors who had visited Khan on Sunday.
Speaking to reporters outside parliament, Gohar said the doctors had informed them that Khan’s condition had improved.
“They said, 'There has been a significant and satisfactory improvement.' With that satisfactory improvement, we also felt satisfied,” he said, noting that the macular thickness in Khan’s eye had reportedly dropped from 550 to 300 microns, a sign of subsiding swelling.
Gohar said the party did not want to politicize Khan’s health.
“We are not doctors, nor is this our field,” he said, noting that Khan’s personal physician in Lahore, Dr. Aasim Yusuf, and his eye specialist Dr. Khurram Mirza had also sought input from the Islamabad-based medical team.
“Our doctors also expressed satisfaction over the report.”
CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS
Despite Gohar’s cautious optimism, Khan’s personal physician, Dr. Yusuf, issued a video message on Monday, saying he could neither “confirm nor deny the veracity” of the government’s claims.
“Because I have not seen him myself and have not been able to participate in his care... I’m unable to confirm what we have been told,” Yusuf said.
He appealed to authorities to grant him or fellow physician, Dr. Faisal Sultan, immediate access to Khan, arguing that the ex-premier should be moved to Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad for specialist care.
Speaking to Arab News, PTI’s central information secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram said Khan’s sister and their cousin, Dr. Nausherwan Burki, will speak to media on Tuesday to express their views about the situation.
The government insists that Khan’s condition has improved.
“His eye [condition] has improved and is better than before,” State Minister Talal Chaudhry told the media in a brief interaction on Monday.
“The Supreme Court of Pakistan is involved, and doctors are involved. What medicine he receives, whether he needs to be hospitalized or sent home, these decisions are made by doctors. Neither lawyers nor any political party will decide this.”
