ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has expanded the category of officials required to publicly disclose their assets, a new regulatory step aimed at increasing transparency and reportedly taken to comply with an International Monetary Fund condition.
A key part of the new regulation makes the asset declarations of public servants accessible to the public. This will allow citizens to review a complete trail of an officer’s holdings from the point they join government service onward. The decision was announced on Thursday through an income tax notification SRO2263 that amends the ‘Sharing of Declaration of Assets of Civil Servants Rules, 2023’.
It significantly broadens the definition of a term “public servant” to include a wider range of government employees under the disclosure framework.
The term now includes officers in BPS-17 and above working for federal or provincial governments, as well as personnel in autonomous bodies, state-owned corporations and firms .
The only officials not covered by the new rule are those protected under an exemption listed in the National Accountability Ordinance of 1999.
Previously, the requirement was limited to a narrow definition of officials serving under the Civil Servants Act of 1973, which left a large number of public sector officers outside the reporting structure.
By bringing personnel across multiple layers of government and SOEs into a single disclosure structure, the authorities intend to create a more uniform standard of accountability.
