Islamabad: According to a source cited on February 6, the Pakistani government has asked the World Bank (WB) for a one-year extension of the $400 million “Pakistan Raises Revenue (PRR)” initiative.
This extension seeks to update particular project development objective (PDO) indicators below the details in order to enhance attribution and eliminate obsolete metrics.
The following are the suggested courses of action, per the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ restructuring paper:
- Extending the project’s timeline by a year to June 30, 2025, in order to provide the Investment Project Financing (IPF) component enough time to be completed.
- Some PDO indicators have been revised in order to improve attribution and get rid of old readings.
- Modifying a few chosen Implementation-Related Indicators (IRIs) and Disbursement-Linked Indicators (DLIs) to account for the longer project period.
- Adjusting certain DLIs and verification procedures to take into consideration unanticipated events that were not taken into account in the project’s original design.
Modifications to PDO indicators specifically comprise
Changing the focus from the Tax to GDP ratio (Percentage) to raising the total collections of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) relative to GDP with the goal of raising FBR’s total collections from 8.5% of GDP in FY-2023 to 8.8% in FY-2025. The purpose of this change is to enhance attribution and more accurately represent the work of the implementing agency.
The “Paying Taxes Indicator” in the Doing Business report will no longer be used to monitor the amount of time required to prepare, file, pay, or withhold General Sales Tax (GST) and Corporate Income Tax (CIT).
However, since the World Bank no longer publishes the Doing Business (DB) Report, different criteria will be applied. These suggested changes seek to improve the “Pakistan Raises Revenue (PRR)” project’s efficacy and relevance by bringing it into compliance with the goals and conditions of the present.
For more news, follow the Al Sadat Marketing.
