ISLAMABAD: It seems the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is stick to its ‘anti-public interest policy’ of a hot pursuit of whistle blowers to silence them and discourage them from pointing finger at big frauds and massive revenue hemorrhages, taking place in the customs field formations across the country.

Sources said although the FBR Chairman, as head of the country’s revenue administration, was legally bound to extend to any whistleblowers the statutory protections against FBR’s retaliatory actions provided in section 10 of the Public Interest Disclosures Act, 2017. Yet the chairman has so far made at least two whistle-blowing custom officers “an example” for the other potential whistle-blowers through retaliatory actions contrary to his obligation under the Public Interest Disclosure Act.

Sources said that the Chairman FBR who should have legally restrained the Member Custom Operations from launching retaliatory actions against the whistle-blowers who pinpointed massive custom frauds, causing revenue losses worth billions of rupees, seems to have blindly followed the member’s advice for using the strategy of retaliation to suppress and conceal from public eye the huge revenue losses which the senior custom officers themselves are allegedly facilitating in the customs field formations for monetary gains at no cost to them.

The whistle-blower whom the FBR has made “an example of” for others is the ex-additional collector of customs adjudication, Faisalabad.

The officer...

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