ISLAMABAD, Jun 13 (APP):Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Rashid Mahmood Langrial said here on Friday the government was laying a strong digital foundation for tax administration reforms and the ongoing transformation of the revenue machinery would take two to three years to fully materialize. Responding to questions during the post-budget press conference, the chairman said FBR was among the earliest federal government organizations to adopt digital systems in the …
FBR building digital foundation to support revenue reforms, says FBR chairman
ISLAMABAD, Jun 13 (APP):Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Rashid Mahmood Langrial said here on Friday the government was laying a strong digital foundation for tax administration reforms and the ongoing transformation of the revenue machinery would take two to three years to fully materialize.
Responding to questions during the post-budget press conference, the chairman said FBR was among the earliest federal government organizations to adopt digital systems in the 1990s, but over time, its platforms became slow and fragmented and lacked integration.
He acknowledged the contributions of previous FBR leadership in introducing digitalization, but said issues emerged over time due to weaknesses in the platform and deterioration in the quality of human resources managing it.
Langrial said some customs functions had been shifted from Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (PRAL) to the Pakistan Single Window (PSW), which had developed into a world-class organization. He credited those who established PSW for its success.
He said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had directed the authorities to transform PRAL into an efficient organization. For this purpose, a highly qualified board had been appointed, which, according to him, comprised individuals with exceptional talent, integrity and professional achievements.
The chairman said PRAL’s senior management and C-suite team had been recruited from the market and included professionals who had led leading companies and possessed strong technical expertise.
He said the Ministry of Finance, under the prime minister’s instructions, had provided PRAL with substantial financial support to attract the required talent and technical resources.
Langrial said PRAL was recruiting professionals and, where necessary, obtaining services from top-tier companies through long-term contracts to strengthen its capabilities.
He, however, stressed that digitalization alone was not sufficient and that human resource development was equally important.
The chairman said Pakistan Customs and Inland Revenue Service (IRS) officers were undergoing specialized training programmes at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), describing the initiative as significantly different from traditional government training arrangements.
He said scale-based courses had also been designed for in-service officers, adding that 131 officials had completed an intensive 21-day certification training programme.
Langrial said FBR was investing in human resource development and would acquire expertise from abroad wherever necessary to strengthen the institution.
He said the digital foundation for reforms should ideally have been established earlier, but substantial work had been undertaken during the last two and a half years. Several digital platforms were being developed and a new operating model, referred to in the budget speech, was also being introduced.
Explaining the need for reforms, he said previous attempts to separate functions within the organization had not succeeded because the system remained largely manual, with no digital logs or accountability mechanisms to track the movement of files and assign responsibility.
The chairman said a dedicated team was currently working on establishing a central data hub that would underpin FBR’s transformation agenda and support future reforms in revenue administration.
He added that building such a system was a long-term process and the transformation of revenue administration would require another two to three years to achieve the desired results.
