ISLAMABAD: Adviser on Finance and Revenue Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh has stressed on the need to establish a link between National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) and Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for data sharing and data analytics.

He was chairing the second meeting of the FBR Policy Board in Islamabad Thursday.

He created a subgroup of members to point out and sort the difficulties that are hindering the progress on the data sharing issue between the two organizations.

This subgroup consists of members Hammad Azhar, Dr. Ishrat Hussain, Faiz Kamoka, Chairman FBR and Chairman NADRA, said a press statement issued by the Finance Ministry adding it would share its report with the chairman in a week.

The Adviser took a special notice of the difficulties, the traders were facing due to stoppage of containers at the Torkham Border, however he was assured by the FBR officials that necessary steps were being taken and the issue would be resolved within the upcoming weeks.

Earlier, Chairman FBR, Muhamamd Javed Ghani, briefed the Adviser on the efforts the institute had been making to improve the capabilities and expertise of its human resource and on the progress of the automation drive of FBR/Customs.

He briefed the Adviser on measures taken and future course planned to improve skills and competence of its staff by providing different in-house and foreign trainings to improve managerial competence and adopt a culture of performance based incentives including promotions.

He also briefed the Adviser on the work being done on the IRIS (software) side to consolidate various application platforms into one to improve efficiency and performance.

The Chairman was further informed that a technologically advanced sales tax registration verification mechanism had been introduced whereby officers with tablets would be sent to capture real-time information and pictures including GPS coordinates of businesses requiring verification.

Details of data sharing arrangements agreed to by 12 other organizations with FBR were also discussed in the meeting.

The Member Customs informed that necessary steps had been taken to resolve the issue of stoppage of containers at the Torkham Border within next few weeks.

On the occasion, Syed Javed shared his recommendations on PRAL and informed that CEO PRAL had been appointed.

The next meeting of the FBR Policy Board would be held by the end of this month and the ToRs of the policy Board would be presented for approval. Hammad Azhar and Abdullah Yousaf shall prepare the said ToRs, the statement added. NNI