The Tariq Bajwa-led inquiry Committee has proposed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to establish a dedicated enforcement force for the Track and Trace project whose sole task should be to carry out effective enforcement which is critically needed for the success of the system.
According to a report available with ProPakistani, the inquiry Committee, in its recommendations, proposed that the government should notify the supervisory committee at the level of PM or the Finance Ministry that should be mandated to look after the entire project implementation and should be empowered to take action against stakeholders for delays.
In addition, it also proposed that FBR may be asked to strengthen its data analytics capability to match production data with sales tax returns of the companies or notified units.
The system was originally envisaged only for the tobacco sector but also extended to other three sectors in haste without due diligence and understanding of local conditions leading to design flaws in the scheme.
This resulted in a poor agreement lacking key requirements such as technology requirements, arbitration mechanisms, performance audits, penalty provisions, and a clear definition of terms.
Although FBR followed the PPRA guidelines for the selection of process, the lack of clear understanding between the licensee and FBR regarding the requisites expertise. The contract lapses on the FBR side weakened the project governance, and oversight resulted inordinate delay in the resolution of outstanding issues between the Licensee and FBR.
Also, this resulted in a flawed implementation of the scheme.
The committee believes that despite the fact that current technology solutions are neither the most efficient nor the most effective, termination of the contract at this stage will trigger litigation and lead to prolong delay in the implementation of their TTS. Thereby resulting in revenue slippage and evasion.
The committee did not find any evidence of malafide in the award of the contract.
