KARACHI-The Sindh Revenue Board (SRB) in Sindh Workers Welfare Fund (SWWF) and Sindh Workers Profit Participation Fund (WPPF) has obtained 527 payments as compared to last year’s 296 payments, registering a growth of 78 per cent despite a slowdown in the economy in general, the chairman of the board disclosed.
In a follow-up meeting between Caretaker Chief Minister Sindh Justice (retd) Maqbool Baqar and Chairman SRB Wasif Memon on Sunday, the latter informed the CM after a question regarding the collection of funds that an increase in the collection of payments was also made despite the reduction of sales in the auto sector due to price hike and pharmaceutical sector due to issues in raw material import in particular, a communique said. Chairman SRB apprised that consequent to the directions of the CM, the SWWF team of SRB has taken prompt actions and issued more than 5,200 notices to the various industrial establishments and recovered an amount of Rs 7.562 Bn in the current financial year as compared to 5.4 Bn recovered last year registering a growth of 35 per cent.
During the meeting, the CM was told: “267 show-cause notices amounting to Rs 40 billion have been issued to the fund payers against which an amount of Rs 6.1 billion had been deposited with Nazir of the Sindh High Court (SHC) by banks and other fund payers”.
It should be noted that the banking sector had deposited bank guarantees worth Rs 5.1 billion with the Nazir of the Court for the first time against 61 show-cause notices. At this, the CM directed the Advocate General (AG) Sindh for early release of the total amount of Rs 31 billion lying with the Nazir of the Sindh High Court as that amount relates to the banking industry and other Sindh-based industrial establishments.
Baqar was further told that in addition to the show-cause notices of Rs. 40 billion, the SRB has issued 303 short payment notices of Rs.27 billion to various fund-payers in compliance with his directives. The SRB had additionally started recoveries through bank attachment against 80 fund payers in whose cases assessment orders have been passed.
Memon told the CM that SRB is making great efforts to take the collection of SWWF and SWPPF to the highest limits. “The target for the first six months of the current financial year set for SRB was Rs 6.3 billion against which the SRB collected Rs 7.562 billion exceeding the target by Rs 1.262 billion. Thus, in total, an amount of Rs 7.562 billion over 6.1 billion (Rs 13.662) has been secured which was unprecedented in Sindh’s history”, the chairman SRB said.
After the meeting, the chief minister pointed out during the meeting that he had taken up the issue of the early release of Rs 22 billion collected by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) from the Sindh based Industrial establishments with the prime minister of Pakistan so that this amount could be utilized for the betterment of labourers in Sindh.