Committee constituted to investigate failure of track and trace system

Islamabad: A 4-member inquiry committee was set up to investigate the failure of the track and trace system.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has set up a 4-member investigation committee under the chairmanship of Finance Secretary Imdadullah Bosal to investigate the failure of the track and trace system. Najeeb Bhatti and Additional Secretary Law and Justice Owais Nauman Kundi are included.

It should be noted that yesterday Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered an investigation calling the track and trace system implemented during Imran Khan’s tenure a fraud. There is a committee, earlier the former Governor State Bank Tariq Bajwa had also conducted an investigation, which did not yield any result, while the Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has also conducted two inquiries.

A four-member inquiry committee has been tasked to investigate the flawed award and implementation of the track and trace system and identify those responsible.

It may be recalled that this track and trace system was implemented in 2019 during the Imran Khan regime, with the aim of combating tax evasion in the cigarette industry, later it was extended to fertilizers and sugar.

Sources say that the investigation committee has started its work in Bosal Qiyaat and in this regard the committee has received the documents from FBR on Saturday and examined them to find out who is responsible for the conception, design and poor execution of the project. Owners can be determined.

Member Digital Initiative Karamat Chaudhry has also appeared before the committee on behalf of FBR. Earlier, the prime minister had set up a fact-finding committee headed by former Governor State Bank Tariq Bajwa, which had asked FBR, the contractor and the manufacturer. The track and trace system was blamed for the glitches, but the Bajwa committee said there was no malice involved in awarding the project.

Sources say that the prime minister is not satisfied with these findings, so he has formed another investigation committee headed by his trusted bureaucrat Imdadullah Bosal.

It should be remembered that the Tehreek-e-Insaf government had given a contract of 25 billion to M/s AJCL Matas and Authenticex consortium to trace tax evasion in the cigarette sector, but the SIS could not be fully implemented.