FBR halts procurement of over 1,000 vehicles amid outcry

• Senate's finance body ordered FBR to halt procurement last week.
• New vehicles necessary for operational purposes: FBR.
• Senators claim receiving deadly threats for raising objections.

After the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue raised objections to the purchase of 1,010 new vehicles, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) temporarily stopped the procurement process to analyse the proposal via a government authority.

In a statement on Thursday, FBR Chairman Rashid Langrial announced that the proposal would be presented before the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) for analysis prior to purchasing vehicles in a bid to gain the confidence of the Senate body.

Last week, the Senate Standing Committee on Finance had ordered the FBR to halt its plan to purchase new vehicles for operational purposes at an estimated cost of Rs6 billion, citing concerns about transparency in the procurement process.

Having reached a consensus in the January 23 meeting, the standing committee decided that it would write to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Finance Minister Mohammad Aurangzeb to stop the purchase. 

No senior FBR official, including the chairman and board members, attended last week’s meeting, leaving only the chief administrator to defend the decision.

In that meeting, an FBR official claimed that the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) had approved the procurement months ago and that the process followed standard procedures, including market surveys and committee approvals.

During the meeting, Mandviwalla came down hard on the FBR’s justification for the procurement, doubting its internal performance assessment mechanisms and reward systems, while calling for more transparency in the process.

FBR chief Langrial, in a separate statement a few days ago, asserted that purchasing vehicles for young officers was necessary for the department's operations.

Earlier today, Senator Faisal Vawda, a member of the said Senate body, claimed that three FBR officers had threatened his life over objections to an “untransparent” proposal for a massive vehicle procurement by the country's tax authority.

Echoing Vawda’s apprehensions, committee chairman Senator Saleem Mandviwalla also reported receiving similar threatening messages.

The controversy surrounding the vehicle procurement and the alleged threats has now escalated into a broader issue, with lawmakers calling for accountability and transparency in the operations of FBR, which is struggling to meet the revenue collection targets for the fiscal year 2025.