Staff Correspondent:

The government has no connection with the Anti-Corruption Commission’s (ACC) investigation into the officials of the National Board of Revenue (NBR), Finance Adviser Salehuddin Ahmed said on Monday.

“NBR staff can now perform their duties without any fear,” he told reporters at a press briefing following an event at the Finance Division.

“We are happy that the NBR issue has been resolved.”

On Sunday the ACC launched an investigation against six officials of the NBR on accusations of facilitating large-scale tax evasion and amassing illegal wealth through bribery.

The officials are: AKM Badiul Alam, member (income tax policy); Mirza Ashiq Rana, additional tax commissioner, Tax Zone-8; Mohammad Morshed Uddin Khan, joint tax commissioner, BCS Tax Academy; Monalisa Shahreen Sushmita, joint commissioner; and Sadhan Kumar Kundu, additional commissioner of the Customs, Excise and VAT Commissionerate.

The announcement of the probe came hours after the NBR officials called off their shutdown programme.

However, when asked about the ACC probe, the adviser said, “I will not answer anything about the ACC. They have their terms of reference. You can ask them directly. While they are a government body, there is no interference from the government in any way.”

Referring to the recent suspension of customs activities due to protests by NBR staff, Salehuddin said some businessmen told him that they had faced major losses due to the work abstention.

“Shutting down such services is not acceptable. Ports are not private property. Even if they have an issue with the government, they should not halt national services in this manner.”

At the event, the adviser also announced that the government had successfully completed budget preparation for 72 state-owned enterprises and autonomous bodies for the current fiscal year using the online platform SABRE+.

Developed by the Finance Division’s Monitoring Cell, the “State-Owned Enterprises and Autonomous Bodies Budget, Reporting and Evaluation Database,” or SABRE+, facilitates budget preparation, debt calculation, fiscal risk assessment, and performance evaluation.

Previously, the Finance Division prepared budgets for 49 institutions offline. Now, the government aims to bring about 400 such institutions under SABRE+.