Employees of the Regional Tax Office (RTO) Lahore continued pen down strike on Wednesday against the proposal of promotion of senior auditors as Assistant Commissioner (Inland Revenue). Federal Revenue Alliance (FRA) employees union President Mian Abdul Qayyum led a demonstration in front of the RTO to condemn the decision which according to them would stop the promotion of income tax (Inland Revenue) employees. Mian Abdul Qayyum while talking to Business Recorder later on claimed that total strike was observed in all the regions across the country except Karachi. He claimed no work was done at Lahore, Sialkot, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and every where in the country.
He said that they were also in constant liaison with FBR employees from Karachi to convince them to join FRA in its struggle. He said that customs wing of the FBR might also be joining them soon in this effort for acceptance of their demands. Mian Abdul Qayyum said that if their demands are not met till Monday, then the Union has decided to go for locking the offices of the tax across the country and not let happen any work by anybody. ‘We may even go for hunger strike to press the FBR high ups for acceptance of their demands,’ he added. Earlier participants of the demonstration held today demanded immediate withdrawal of the proposal claiming that it was also not agreed by Member Inland Revenue and Member Legal FBR which was the basic requirement before sending the case to Ministry of Finance. Their other demands included that the Carrier path in the services must be properly followed and in this respect the senior auditors be asked to file surety bonds/affidavits so that they would not file any case in the courts later on against this career path defined already. Two orders i.e. putting Sr. Auditors as Unit In charges and the other one designating them as Assistant Commissioner Inland Revenue (OPS) be withdrawn immediately. An Inland Revenue Officer must be posted as Member (Admn). Inland Revenue Officers and Inspectors Inland Revenue be also upgraded to BS -17 and BS – 16 respectively.
