ISLAMABAD: Taking notice of Customs Today’s report about shortage of staff, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has started the recruitment process of staff of up Grade-14 for the different posts.
With the completion of recruitment process, the FBR offices would be put in order along with enhancing the capacity building of the organization as well as increasing the working efficiency of officers; the main challenges in meeting the robust revenue collection target for the current fiscal year.
In the beginning of current month, Customs Today had reported that FBR missed the revenue collection target only because of the fact that it faced the worst shortage of staff in almost every department and wing. The situation is so alarming that in some offices one assistant is coordinating with three officers at the same time.
Therefore, FBR needed to focus on the fresh recruitment to make up the shortage of staff in all the cadres; lower to higher level because all the wings and departments are trying to perform duties with least possible availability of human resource.
Moreover, entire staff from peon to officers level requires training on regular basis around-the-year to have updated techniques and technologies along with the best international practices
Official source at FBR told Customs Today, that around 50 to 60 staffers from different posts up to grade 14 are being recruited. In this regard, the five centers for the interview of the candidates who have qualified through tests and screening have been set up in Peshawar, Multan, Faisalabad, Lahore and Karachi.
“No recruitments in the FBR have been made for last two years because the tax authority was not allowed to fulfill the human resource shortage by state institutions like the judiciary, Election Commission and others which forced FBR to perform below the set criterion to meet the revenue collection targets,” the source added.
Moreover, the source said that not a single candidate for the post of stenotypist had qualified due to lower typing speed; minimum threshold for this post is 40 words in shorthand and 80 words typing speed per minute, but candidates failed to come up to the required accuracy of words and speed for being massive users of computers.