Secretary Excise says an inquiry has been ordered in this regard.
LAHORE - The officials of Punjab Excise and Taxation department have been found involved in Rs66.6 million embezzlement done through technical means by issuing fake liquor permits, it has been reliably learnt. This technical corruption was established through a huge difference found in the vending fee collected by the department in July this year and the permit fee collected against a total of 4787 valid permits issued during the same month. The government takes fees of Rs1200 per permit whereas the vending fee per permit is Rs1602. While the permit fee collected against the valid 4787 permits is Rs5.74 million while the vending fee which is charged per bottle issued to the permit holders comes to Rs99.78 million. As per calculation, the actual vending fee should have been Rs7.6 million only in respect of 4778 valid permits instead of Rs99.77 million, an amount which is justified only if 55,000 permits had been issued by the department. The department collects Rs267 as vending fee per bottle of liquor. Since one permit holder can buy six bottles, the total vending fee calculated at Rs1602 per permit.
The Nation’s investigation revealed that in the month of July this year, 4787 permits were issued by the Excise and Taxation department. The fee for each permit issued is Rs1200 and the total issuance fee of six bottles can be purchased on one issued permit and Rs267 vending fee is charged by the government on the purchase of each bottle. This means 28,722 bottles had to be purchased against the 4787 issued liquor permits and the vending fee of which was supposed to be Rs7.6 million.
According to the available statement of the month of July (copy available with The Nation), a vending fee of 99.97 million rupees was collected which shows that liquor was purchased and sold by creating fake permits under the same valid permit numbers
A whistle blower Zahid Bashir, who is posted as an inspector in the Excise Branch, told The Nation that he had also filed a written complaint to the DG excise and taxation about the newly-appointed Excise and Taxation Officer ETO Saeed Butt who got issued thousands of fake liquor permits under the guise of dead persons and missing permits, making several sets constituted of 50:50 permits issued on a single permit number.
In this technical embezzlement, at least 50 permits were issued for a single permit fee, making the national treasury suffered huge losses. The petitioner has appealed in the application given to DG Excise and Taxation to investigate the matter and issue an order to register the case against ETO Farrukh Saeed Butt and Inspector Zubair Yusuf. When contacted by The Nation, Secretary Excise and Taxation department Bilal Lodhi has said that he had taken notice of the alleged embezzlement and has directed the DG Excise Asif Tufail to initiate an inquiry into the matter. The accused officers were also contacted for their version but they refused to give any statement.