Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar has said that the government will provide protection where required and will not impose any burden where it is not sustainable or impacts the common man.
He added that the SROs aimed at providing relief to charitable institutions will be given protection. He informed that the whole process will take few years to be completed.
The finance minister was chairing a meeting of the committee constituted by the prime minister to review the concessionary regime (SROs) at the finance ministry on Saturday. In his opening remarks, the finance minister who is the convener of the committee said that the committee in its eight meetings held in last three months, had reviewed the Statutory Regulatory Orders (SROs) with an independent and open mind and conducted an exercise in keeping with the national interest. The finance minister said that the prime minister’s decision to constitute the committee and including in it the representatives of relevant ministries as well as stakeholders including business persons was aimed at taking all stakeholders on board so that the decisions were made with collective wisdom.
The FBR chairman gave a detailed presentation on the plan for phasing out of the SROs in three years timeframe. He informed that the plan encompasses principles to remove contradictions and distortions. He said that after consultations with the stakeholders the recommendations had been prepared for the committee to consider and take appropriate decision. He added that there was a general consensus that local manufacturing and exports should be encouraged and they should save money where possible on imports.
In this connection, the finance minister said that the committee and the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had worked hard to rationalise and streamline SROs and he had been himself holding several meetings. The purpose of carrying out this exercise was to remove distortions and disparities created due to the issuance of arbitrary SROs, he added.
