February 16, 2022: The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue here on Wednesday passed the Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Limitation (FRDL) Amendment bills 2021 aimed at reducing the country's debt to GDP ratio to 60 percent in 6 years.

The committee, which met here under the chairmanship of Member National Assembly (MNA) Faiz Ullah, discussed various points of the Bill and unanimously approved the new law.

Briefing the committee about the bill, a finance ministry representative briefed the committee about FRDL and informed that in the bill, it was proposed that the country's overall debt to GDP ratio would be brought down to 60 percent in next six years.

He said the target is set to decrease debt to GDP ratio by 2 percent annually and outstanding guarantees by 10 percent of GDP.

Faiz Ullah said that there would be a room for loans in case of increase in expenditure so that the system can continue to function.

However, the committee deferred the State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) Governance and Operation bill 2021, the COVID-19 (Prevention of Smuggling) bill 2020, and The Tax Law (Third Amendment) bill 2021.

Meanwhile, briefing the committee on the SOEs enterprises bill, 2021, the ministry of finance informed that the committee had proposed to include members of the parliament in the boards of directors of the SOEs and the members would be nominated by the chairman and speaker of upper and lower houses and the minimum age should be 25 years.

Member National Assembly (MNA) Ahsan Iqbal said that non-parliamentary board member should have 10 years experience in relevant field with minimum age of 35 years and Board member must have Pakistani citizenship.

“My dissenting note on this clause is that 100% Pakistani citizen should be a member of the board,” he added.

MNA Syed Naveed Qamar said that existing Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules should be enforced.

MNA Ayesha Ghous Pasha proposed to amend the PPRA rules to give freedom to the SOEs.

The ministry of finance said that any procurement policy would be approved by the federal government and no single entity could enforce the rules without the approval of the federal government adding that there are problems in the PPRA rules due to which government enterprises face problems.

The committee directed ministry of finance and ministry of law to work further on PPRA rules.

Meanwhile, on Tax Law bill 2021, Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Dr Muhammad Ashfaq Ahmad informed the committee that out of total cases worth Rs 3500 billion still pending in the court, Rs300 billion belongs to Customs.

He said that the cases have been filed in the courts under Article 199 and FBR is going to create a new court which would be of Inland Revenue.

The Finance Minister has also said that Rs 3,000 billion tax is involved in litigation.

Chairman FBR said that the board started the corporate guarantee but it was misused, to resolve this issue, we will prepare a proposal for the next budget,

Customs official said that the first request for objection to valuation could only be made to the department, if there is still an objection, an application could be made to the tribunal, adding that earlier, corporate guarantee was accepted on goods clearance but now only bank guarantee is required.

Meanwhile, the chairman committee said that many issues that have already been resolved should be removed from presentation for the committee.

The committee also heard the problem being faced by stakeholders belonging to Agriculture and Jewellers sector and suggested to come with viable solution. The chairman asked them to come with their proposals in next meeting so that the matter should be resolved as soon as possible.

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