KARACHI: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is likely to face hardships in meeting its revenue target as the officers of the board went on a pen-down strike till the acceptance of their demands.

The FBR officers have observed a pen-down strike countrywide, demanding the government to defreeze their performance allowance.

The representatives of All Pakistan FBR employees said that the government had frozen their performance allowance in 2015. Subsequently, no increase was made in their performance allowance, which was supposed to be on a par with their salaries. They said that they were also struggling to meet their kitchen expenses due to the current wave of high inflation, leaving no other option but to take this aggressive move, especially at a crucial time, when FBR is striving to meet its revenue target under IMF pressure.

They said that FBR was considered the bread-earning department for the country but the FBR officers were deprived of fuel, medical and other allowances as well.

On the other hand, other departments, falling in the ambit of the federal government, are enjoying special allowances that forced them to stage a protest against this injustice, they added. They demanded the government to defreeze their performance allowance and allow all the other allowances, being given to other federal departments.

“We have registered our protest today and will continue our pen-down strike till the acceptance of our demand,” they said. Needless to mention, a special performance allowance was introduced back in early 2000 when a reform process was initiated that turned CBR into FBR in the tenure of former chairman Abdullah Yousuf. Under special performance allowance, the FBR employees were given one additional salary every month but this allowance was frozen by PML(N)-led government in 2015.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022