QUETTA: The National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) on Friday signed an agreement with the Excise, Taxation and Anti-Narcotics Department, Balochistan for automation of tax collection system across the province.

The agreement was signed by Executive Vice President NBP (Payment Services and Digital Banking Group) Muhammad Farooq and Director General Excise, Taxation and Anti-Narcotics Balochistan Fateh Muhammad Khajak on behalf of their respective organisation. NBP President Saeed Ahmad and Balochistan Secretary Excise and Taxation, Zafar Ali Shah Bukhari were also present at the signing ceremony.

The NBP president said automation and digitisation of all government procedures, payments and tax collection is one of the primary objectives all federal and provincial governments for achieving complete E- governance. NBP is assisting all the provincial governments in digitising their various payments, fee and taxes collection systems. National Bank has chosen JazzCash to be its official partner in branchless banking project, he said.

On the occasion, Secretary E&T and Anti-Narcotics Balochistan said that earlier taxes were collected manually through NBP’s branches which had its own challenges and complications. Reconciliation of collected money was one of the biggest problems while at times transparency and timeliness were compromised in manual system, he noted. The implementation of new automated system would make the process much easier for customers and will provide real time validation, he stressed.

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2018