Shabbar Zaidi appointed chairman FBR: PM Imran Khan

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan here on Monday appointed Syed Shabbar Zaidi, a prominent economist and tax affairs expert as chairpman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), ARY News reported.

PM Imran Khan announced the decision during an interaction with reporters and anchors in Islamabad. Syed Shabbar Zaidi is appointed head of the tax collection body days after the removal of Jahanzeb Khan from the post.

PM Imran Khan said that centre reached to the brink of bankruptcy due to the 18th Amendment and added that the provinces failed to meet the tax collection target duet to the amendment. He said, “It is not a big deal to collect Rs8 trillion tax per year in Pakistan.”

Syed Shabbar Zaidi is a chartered accountant and had served as caretaker provincial minister of Sindh in 2013. He is mainly known for his extensive contribution towards development of taxation and fiscal laws of the country. He is also a senior partner in A. F. Ferguson & Co., a member firm of PwC.

Among his non-profit work, Zaidi is a trustee of Sindh Institute of Urology & Transplantation (SIUT) and member of Boards of Governors of Liaquat National Hospital, Karachi.

He had also been the president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan and Chairman of the South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA).

Earlier, the government on April 5 had appointed Dr Reza Baqir as Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) after Tariq Bajwa had stepped down as the country’s top financial officer.

Dr Baqir wasserving as the Resident Director of International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Egypt.

He had also served as Mission Chief of IMF in Romania and Bulgaria and has over 16 years of experience in financial management with IMF and the World Bank.

He has been appointed for three years from the date of his joining, a notification issued by Finance Division on Saturday read.