Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has said that the FBR has established a monitoring system in sugar mills, a modern system is being implemented for complete monitoring of sugar mills.
While holding a press conference with Information Minister Attaullah Tarar, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said that a record $3.1 billion in remittances have been received in February, thanking overseas Pakistanis who are our ambassadors and lifeline.
The Finance Minister said that remittances will remain at the highest level in the current fiscal year and a total of $36 billion is expected to be received.
He said that all surveys indicate an increase in business and consumer confidence, and the acceleration in industrial activities also indicates this.
The Finance Minister said that at the beginning of the sugar crushing season this year, the FBR has launched a modern monitoring system for sugar production, in which 5 monitoring systems have been introduced, including track and trace stamps, installation of automated counters for counting bags, video recording and digital eye-counting, and installation of S-Track invoicing system at the outer gates of sugar mills.
Muhammad Aurangzeb said that FBR officials are always present in sugar mills for human supervision, but now to ensure transparency, the officials will be kept on a 10-day rotation between sugar mills, while officers from FIA, IB and other institutions are also assisting them.
The Finance Minister said that the benefit of this system is that sugar is being sold to genuine distributors and hoarding and profiteering have been reduced to a great extent. After the implementation of the monitoring system, 6 sugar mills have been sealed while fines of Rs. 125 million have been imposed.
He said that in the first 2 months of this year, Rs. 24 billion in sales tax has been collected from sugar mills, while in the same period last year, Rs. 15 billion in sales tax was collected, which means that the collection of sales tax from sugar mills has increased by 54%.
The Finance Minister said that for the first time, sugar has not been smuggled to Afghanistan but has been exported, which has been very beneficial. He said that this year, 5.7 million tons of sugar have been produced in the country and if last year’s reserves are added, we as a government are confident that this quantity will be enough to meet the country’s needs in the current season.
