PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif hit hard at the PTI government for fudging with the revenue collection figures when the Accountant General of Pakistan Revenues found anomaly in these statistics, thus exposing the economically-novice PTI government, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.
The PML-N leader in a statement issued in Lahore on Sunday severely criticized the PTI government for showing wrong figures under the head of the revenue collection by the Federal Board of Revenue. He said the government position was exposed when the AGPR objected over the inclusion of Rs140 billion in revenue amount collected by the FBR.
He said that the AGPR was demanding of the government to show a reduction in the revenue collection amount after the payment of tax refund.
Shehbaz said this revelation showed how the government was fidgeting with the economic and statistical figures. He said last year the government did an adjustment of Rs100 billion. He said the report was revealing how ‘truthful’ the government was.
He bemoaned that if the government kept on fidgeting with the economic figures then it would be unable to carve out sound economic planning and country would have to bear crisis after crisis.
He said the government was doing the same thing with national exchequer and revenue as it had already done with sugar and flour.
Shehbaz said the AGPR had blown a dent to the government reputation after exposing its doctoring of the revenue figures.
He said showing grants under the head of revenue was a sheer deception on government’s part. He pointed out that if collection figures were wrong, then the provinces would get wrong share in the tax revenues. He said this would create a sense of mistrust and contention between the federal government and its units which did not augur well for both.
The PML-N leader questioned whether the government wanted federating units at each other’s throats. He lamented on one hand the government could not achieve its revenue target and on the other it showed figures which were not realistic.