ZAHEER ABABSI

ISLAMABAD: Minister for State for Finance Rana Muhammad Afzal Khan Thursday stated that managing external side will be a major challenge for the government in the remaining six months of the current fiscal year.

During his first interaction with mediapersons after taking the charge of State Minister of Finance, Rana Afzal stated that $6 billion foreign repayment are due before June 2018 and the plan to manage the repayments and foreign exchange reserves is being discussed and will be finalized in the next couple of meetings with the Prime Minister.

He, however, flatly ruled out the possibility of taking another bailout package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The state minister also enlisted available options of commercial borrowing or issuance of bonds. The government, he said, is exploring the possibility of taking oil on deferred payment from a friendly country. Rana Afzal Khan said that the government is unhappy with subsidies and he as minister will never support them in his personal capacity.

The minister said the government is considering offering another amnesty scheme in an effort to provide an opportunity to Pakistanis for bringing their money back. He continued that since Pakistan is a member of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), it will make difficult for them to hide their assets. “Assets accountability under OECD will start and government sees it an opportunity and most appropriate time to offer another amnesty scheme,” he added. He said that amnesty scheme will either be implemented through a Presidential Ordinance or through finance bill.

The present government, in his opinion, should present the budget for the next fiscal year as well and the date can be moved forward in this regard if there is no legal hitch. He said that the budget can be presented in May instead of June if there is no legal issue.

Replying to questions, he stated that the new economic team will try to manage the budget deficit at 5 percent for the current fiscal year well. “We are also discussing tax reforms and from the 1st day of January tax notices will be issued to the 10,000 persons who have been identified by using available data-base of property transactions and travel visits,” said the state minister for finance.

He added that a meeting with the Prime Minister earlier during the day discussed in detail property tax as well as its bottlenecks and the federal government is unable to do much because the matter is a provincial subject. However, he stated that another meeting in five to six days will discuss the options on property tax. The minister said that he was informed that there was considerable increase in tax filers with number of filers increasing to 1.140 million so far in the current fiscal year as opposed to 0.9 million for the same period of the last fiscal year.