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+--- Thread: REFORMS THROUGH EXPENSIVE IMPORTED CONSULTANTS (/showthread.php?tid=4108)
REFORMS THROUGH EXPENSIVE IMPORTED CONSULTANTS - javed - 01-19-2007
In their Article entitled âTax Reforms Why expensive foreign consultantsâ in Daily Business Recorder of 10 July 2007 Huzaima Bukhari and Dr. Ikramul Haq have criticized as to why the Government has hired foreign consultants for the tax reforms whereas these imported consultants do not appear to have proper expertise on the subject. They allege that qualifications of these high fee imported consultants have not been disclosed. They very rightly argue that what worth these consultants can be when they do not know the conditions and atmosphere here which only the local consultants can understand.
I have hardly 5% eye vision hence my inability otherwise I wished to give a reference somewhere lying in my abandoned old record when a foreign consultant on huge fee was imported long ago as Adviser on Agriculture. The said expert had been working in the Civil Defence in his own country. The fact is for the last 20 years we are wasting under this label or that in the name of administrative reforms in different fields but only are providing jobs to some dear ones. For example, why this need of consultants now whereas for the last 8 years we have a Tax Ombudsman. Earlier to that about 15-18 years the Federal Ombudsman dealt the tax matters which today the Tax Ombudsman is doing. In presence of a huge ombudsman system why require a new reform system? One may doubt on my mental condition saying that the ombudsman system do exist in other countries too where still is need of reforms in every field. It is quite right but in our case our ombudsman system is much different from the systems of others. In our ombudsman system the main job of the ombudsman described is to diagnose, pinpoint, declare the act of mal administration done and undo the wrong done AND put the derailed system back on track. Whereas in other countries their ombudsman system is to provide individual reliefs.
The point is how much reforms in last 25 years came due to our ombudsman system say in Tax or CBR? Certainly not compared to our expenses; reason being that in our case the Ombudsmen system hardly did the main duty âto diagnose and put the system back on trackâ so the same wrong does not reoccur again. Our ombudsman system only provided individual reliefs and prepared voluminous annual reports. Take for example the first case of tax ombudsman, at least passed through my first as the first one, was in a newspaper that some Niswar vendor made a complaint that he was issued excessive demand of income tax. The concerned ombudsman forwarded the complaint to the income tax for usual rejoinder on which the concerned ITO reduced the tax demand which the complainant happily paid. The tax ombudsman showing his satisfaction finished the case. Now here is the dilemma. The Tax ombudsman did not take the complaint, from âdiagnose and putting the system back on trackâ point rather from merely providing a relief to Niswar Vendor complaint point of view. Had we been really serious to reform the system to ensure non occurrence of similar wrongs or bureaucratic accesses, the concerned income tax officer should had been seriously taken to task as to why he in the first instance he issued an excessive demand which he himself later reduced. Had it been done then hardly there had been any future complaints of excessive assessments. âWhatâ was behind the ITOâs issuance of excessive demand was the main point to take the dead dogs from our stinking national well and not merely pulling out the stinking water.
The day this very valuable Article appeared, I was just viewing the Geo TV disclosing a scandal of some 40 millions tax refund to two telecommunication compaies has been unearthed in the CBR.
Do we really want any honest reforms? Certainly not. Many years back one DIG was explaining with graphs that crime rates has decreased this and that. Someone pointed out this phenomena is since long as graph sometime comes down and goes up again. He questioned why the crime is not finished? I remember the DIG explained usual bureaucratic things but finally a bit laughed and said âif the crime is finished totally where will we goâ. At this the whole audience laughed loudly.
During the interim government of Miraj Khalid a lot of hue and cry was made that it was not merely the written off bank loans rather also huge unpaid utility bills through which a class was looting the country. My telephone was twice disconnected despite timely payment whereas the lists published showed lacs of Rupees outstanding against many. I addressed Chairman PTCL how these phone remained working, he merely forwarded it to GM Phones Lahore from where I never got response. Since onee door of corruption was going to be closed due to critisim at national level, the telephone bureaucracy âreformedâ the system and in the new reformed system it was prescribed that a tenant could only get a phone when his landlord undertakes the responsibility of paying unpaid bills of the tenant. A tenant under the house lease agreement vacates the premises by 30 June. His June usage bill comes first week of August when the tenant had long gone? So the million dollar question arose if the PTCL was really honest in reform why did not it reformed to prescribe that in case a phone service remained alive even after two months bills remaining unpaid, the concerned account officer would be held responsible and all unpaid bills over and above two months period will be deducted from his personal salary. But this which was the right way was not done, why? It can be understood from one example. A citizen complained to the Federal Ombudsman that he has received a 5 years accumulated gas bill when his tenant has left the premises. On investigation it was found that the tenant had been regularly keeping someone in the concerned gas company âhappyâ who did not let the bills go in dispatch pipeline simultaneously ensuring service remains alive. As soon as the sweet stopped the 5 years accumulated bill was let go to the poso office.
A small news item appeared that Karachi Development Authority (KDA) has directed some allottees of plots to furnish their particulars. I do not now remember exactly what it was. As an allottee I addressed KDA in an envelope addressed to Director General, Karachi Development Authority, Civic Center, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Karachi-75300. The envelope came back undelivered. The post office submitted me a written statement from the concerned postman that no body at huge KDA office was ready to receive the envelope on the plea that there was no more any Director General. The postman wrote in his statement that it is his daily problem that lot of mail coming was not being received from him. I took up the matter as a formal complaint with Sindh Ombudsman that even if under the new local system there were now District Coordination officers, and this and that but KDA office was still there, KDA files were still there, the same staff was doing same work on same files hence non acceptance of my letter was an act of mal administration. Telephone & Telegrapg (T&T) name was changed to Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation (PTC) and then to present PTCL but mail addressed to T&T was never returned back (in those times we had not yet got 12 billion reserves nor had we entered into the list of top respected countries in the world). The Sindh ombudsman as usual addressed it to the local government. It is now about four years except for sending one or two reminders to the best of my knowledge Sindh Ombudsman has done nothing despite my repeated requests. This showed me the ineffectivness of the ombudsman system if not that today bureaucracy is not afraid of from any sort of ombudsman. As per the procedure I then addressed then the Governor of Sindh, on his costly established web system, about this no progress and non response from Sindh Ombudsman, It is now more than a year the Sindh Governor has not even cared to apprise me. Thus four years have passed and I am still clueless. So my point which is a very logical one that what worth then these costly web systems, this ombudsman and that peopleâs cell or reforms is till the faces who are to be reformed remain the same occupying the public seat. What a foreign costly consultant can do or reform in such cases eg non response in 4 contious years even on a small matter.