ISLAMABAD: Parliamentary Secretary for Finance, Revenue, Economic Affairs, Statistics and Privatization Rana Muhammad Afzal Khan Thursday informed the National Assembly that Pakistan Bureau of Statistics had completed arrangements to conduct the 6th Population and Housing Census.
During Question Hour, Rana Afzal Khan said the matter is under consideration by Council of Common Interests (CCI) and the government will announce the census date in consultation with the provinces.
He said census was a priority of the government, which needed a budget of Rs 13 billion. The funds have been made available by the Ministry of Finance, but the current situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was causing delay in conducting the census.
Rana Afzal Khan said that there is no such study conducted to determine the losses suffered by the country's economy due to sit-ins in Islamabad by Finance Division.
However, the parliamentary secretary said that some losses are quantifiable and some are not, adding that the government had paid 645 million to the security agencies to protect the lives of general public during sit-ins.
To another question, he said that federal taxes are collected through Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and field offices in Karachi because of taxation at import stage and location of head offices of many companies in Karachi.
Therefore, these may, or may not, pertain to taxes generated at Karachi. Since economic activities are carried out all over the country, it is not possible to determine the exact amount of taxes generated at a particular collection point or city, he added.
Rana Afzal Khan said that federal government disburses funds to the provinces in accordance with the NFC Award and not to the regions in a province.
He said that Rs. 89.8 billion have been transferred to Government of Sindh from July-October, 2014, in accordance with NFC Award.
Rana Afzal Khan said that in addition to above, Rs. 80 million has been released to Government of Sindh for the Karachi specific Project "Lyari Expressway Resettlement Project", a project co-funded by the federal and provincial governments.
He said that the government will shortly appoint commissioners and Chairman of Security Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) as advertisement in this regard has already been released to the newspapers.
Parliamentary secretary said that the government has imported 49360 vehicles in 2012-13 and 34501 in 2013-14 from nine countries including Japan, UAE, UK, USA, Australia, Germany, China, Thailand, South Africa and Indonesia.
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