HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Political, economic and financial challenges aside, the programme was able to achieve the desired
traction and work on critical reform areas of revenue mobilisation and investment climate

Gender, inclusion and climate change remain cross cutting themes for the programme and this year we have been able to begin important reforms in these areas

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

COMPREHENSIVE NEGOTIATION SESSIONS ON SALES TAX HARMONISATION (STS)

REMIT engaged with the federal and provincial revenue boards and top private sector leaders to undertake evidence-based negotiations for attaining 45% harmonisation on procedures of STS in provinces and the federation

Leadership-level participation from the Federal Board of Revenue, Sind Revenue Board, KP Revenue Authority, Punjab Revenue Authority and other stakeholders

PRESENTATION OF BUDGET RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FINANCE BILL 2022-23 TO
FEDERAL MINISTER OF FINANCE

REMIT became the only development programme to present and advocate key budget proposals to Federal Finance Minister, Finance Secretary, Chairman FBR along with a team from the British High Commissioner. This resulted in PKR 150 billion (GBP 600 million) worth of ‘new revenue generation’ measures incorporated in the Finance Bill 2022.

SESSION WITH ALL NATIONAL WOMEN'S CHAMBERS

To enable inclusive policies, REMIT conducted a dialogue with all national women chambers on tax issues with Member Reforms FBR in the chair. This was the first such comprehensive effort at the national level to enable women's voices to be heard for taxation measures. This session also included representation from Baluchistan and South of Punjab areas which are geographically remote and socially and economically backward

This also led to the development of gender and taxation policy note by REMIT which was included in the budget recommendations presented to the Finance Minister

EARLY ASSESSMENT OF FLOODS

REMIT was the only development sector partner that developed an immediate ‘Early Assessment of Flood Impact’ report which was presented to the Minister for State on Finance and was approved in the week prior to the visit of UN Secretary-General.

The report and its findings were presented by the Finance Minister and the Prime Minister to the UN Secretary-General as an early loss and damage estimate of the massive floods all over Pakistan.

PUBLIC PRIVATE DIALOGUES (PPDs) ON PRICING & REGULATORY CONSTRAINTS IN PHARMA SECTOR

Public-Private Dialogues (PPDs) are usually treated as an one-off activity prior to some important event but never followed through or institutionalized. REMIT infused a fresh and more rigorous approach to Public-Private Dialogues by not just initiating them, but also following up, coordinating and concluding them effectively. One important example of this is the pharmaceutical industry PPD for a result-based dialogue. REMIT adopted a highly structured, responsive, coordinated, and collaborative approach to conducting the PPDs.

The senior level of public ownership and interest created credibility and the private sector was seen to be extremely forthcoming. Thirteen (13) reforms have been identified to address critical issues faced by the Pharma and API Sector in Pakistan which include suggested amendments in the Drug Act 1976 to help reduce the time and cost it takes to register a new drug, improve the speed of response on pricing mechanism to changing market conditions, amendments on making the certification period consistent with international good practices to ensure cost and time savings, enabling exports and a more inclusive and enabling inspection regime.

REMIT is now setting up a formal and more institutionalized online PPD system to ensure effective public-private dialogues in the future

GENDER AUDIT FOR PAKISTAN SINGLE WINDOW

As one of its flagship gender and inclusion initiatives, REMIT conducted a gender audit for the Pakistan Single Window Company – a public sector company by Pakistan Customs.

REMIT partnered with PSW to conduct the gender audit with the aim of strengthening PSW’s internal and external policies, systems, and procedures by mainstreaming gender considerations and instituting the process of gender audit and compliance within PSW functions, including a) internal organizational HR, gender, and anti-harassment policies; and b) external PSW’s single subscription forms and PSW’s platforms such as trade information portal, port community system etc.

Female traders were also made part of the fieldwork to come up with specific needs and to reflect on the existing processes matching their requirements. The biggest success has been the formulation of a time-bound action plan developed with PSW for implementation as a result of the gender audit findings and recommendations.

It is pertinent to mention here that this was the first-ever gender audit of a public sector institution in Pakistan and REMIT hopes that this work will set the tone for other organisations to follow suit.

FEMALE TAXPAYER FACILITATORS TRAINING

Research findings presented under FCDO’s Knowledge for Development initiative suggested that women taxpayers feel more pressured and express technical inability to deal with tax issues. They also find engagement with tax authorities cumbersome. The case in Pakistan is not very different, where women taxpayers report hostile behaviour at the hands of the tax administration while being overcharged by tax lawyers. To address this problem and facilitate women taxpayers as well as create women entrepreneurs REMIT designed a ‘Taxpayer facilitators’ training module.

Fifty-two (52) women were trained, split into two cohorts of training that ran for three days each. The women were trained in the basic theory of tax and asset filing and were provided hands-on training to file tax returns and generate asset declarations. The informal interviews suggest that around 40% would like to use the training as a source of income – thus, an indirect contribution in generating incomes for at least 20 households; i.e. 130 household beneficiaries while others will be using this training for their own business ventures.

It is important to mention here that the training was not just for women with legal or business backgrounds. Participants were carefully selected from varied backgrounds to serve one very important purpose- to make taxation easy and accessible for everyone.

HIGH LEVEL POLITICAL ECONOMY SESSION

The political uncertainty and then the devastation caused by the floods has made it very challenging to work in critical economic reform areas as the environment is challenging and issues far too many. The REMIT programme, in six months, has seen a federal government transition through a no-confidence vote, three government changeovers in Punjab, and the posting of a new military chief. All this has resulted in a rapid change of stakeholders, changing economic agendas, and worsening of the macro-economic situation.

REMIT was able to invite the Minister of State for Finance, Additional Secretary Reforms, Board of Investment and other high-level experts to the British High Commission for a deep-dive political economy session. FCDO Development Director hosted the discussion for cross-practice knowledge building and to understand the pulse of the stakeholders with whom the British High Commission works.

COMMUNICATION TRAINING FOR
PUBLIC SECTOR MANAGERS

Managing citizen expectations is a core function of the government and requires substantial capabilities relating to strategic communications and effective campaign design and implementation. The inception phase identified substantial gaps in public sector capabilities relating to effective economic reform communication especially engaging with citizens and managing expectations and perceptions. The same gaps and needs were identified by the Government Communication Services International (GCSI), UK in an independent scoping exercise.

Working with GCSI, REMIT facilitated two hybrid training courses for senior and middle managers in the Federal Board of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Commerce and Board of Investment. The training covered courses on “Introduction to Communications: Strategic Communications and Campaigning Excellence”. REMIT took special care to ensure that while seeking nominations from government stakeholders, managers who are in decision-making positions on internal and external communications are a part of the training cohort along with the public relations and communications managers in the organisations. Also, all nominations were permanent public sector officers to ensure sustainability. The first course had a total of 12 participants (3 females, 9 males) while the second course has a total of 08 participants. The courses have been successfully completed with a combination of hybrid online and in-person sessions and certificates have been distributed to the participants.

PAKISTAN ECONOMIC SURVEY-CITIZENS VERSION

The main publication every year for the Government of Pakistan, covering the facts and figures of the economy is the “Pakistan Economic Survey”.

For the last 5 decades, this document has always been produced as a lengthy (400-500 page) document in a dense narrative form. The document has been widely used by academics and researchers and is a key source of information for the budget-making exercise as well as the framing of policies and public projects.

The REMIT team while supporting citizen-friendly communications advised the Ministry of Finance to think more innovatively and present key economic facts in a way that is relevant to a broader audience, especially common citizens who otherwise are unable to learn basic facts about why certain economic decisions were taken.

As a result of these efforts, this year, for the first time, the Economic Survey was launched with a summary citizen-friendly version supported and designed by REMIT, which made it easier for citizens and non-technical readers to understand economic data. The survey was launched by the Minister of Finance on 9^th June 2022 along with the Federal Minister of Planning, Minister of State for Finance and Revenue and the Finance Secretary.

REMIT’s contribution was mentioned in the foreword and was appreciated by the Prime Minister. The product has been such a huge success that the MoF has now made it a part of its regular annual publication and has desired further guidance on initiating a monthly version of the same.

CUSTOM BORDER SURVEY & FACILITY
DESIGN BY REMIT

REMIT despite mass floods and unrest was able to identify 22 Custom-Border facilitation points across 3,700Km+ land borders of Pakistan

A comprehensive mapping of all informal border crossings across Pakistan’s western border was carried out to identify and recommend areas for opening as formal Border Control Points (BCPs) were conducted. The findings will inform PC-I for installing the facilities to help local communities trade with ease.

SETTING UP A CLIMATE FINANCE UNIT AT
THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE

Pakistan being one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change needs immediate action to institutionalize critical interventions. Supporting the government in building in-government capabilities related to climate action is the most significant support required at the moment.

REMIT brought key experts on climate finance in a policy dialogue with the Ministry of Finance and was able to influence Ministry’s decision to notify a Climate Finance Unit. Now the programme is working for effective operationalisation and the work has become more important considering the floods and fresh climate change challenges that Pakistan is facing.

DOCUMENTING SEVEN DECADES OF
PAKISTAN’S ECONOMIC JOURNEY

As another support to the Ministry of Finance, REMIT supported the Ministry of Finance (MoF) in developing an analysis of the long-term economic data and developed a consolidated report on economic development and key initiatives since 1947.

REMIT worked collaboratively with the Ministry to develop a communication document to present the economic journey of Pakistan since its inception. Given it was the 75^th year of independence, this document was packaged as ‘Pakistan’s Economic Journey of 75 years. The document was launched by the Finance Ministry and the Minister of Finance thanked REMIT for leading on this initiative to support the government. The real success of this intervention is twofold.

(i) Building analytical capability in MoF to work with different sets of economic data and extract a narrative.

ii) Creating a larger understanding and ownership of ‘innovative communication’ at the heart of the government’s economic governance.

GENDER AND TAXATION REFORMS SESSION FOR FCDO’s COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

REMIT Pakistan’s pioneering work on gender and taxation was chosen as a case study to present to the FCDO’s international Community of Practice on tax reforms. REMIT presented the work done on training female taxpayers’ facilitators, building partnerships for more enabling tax environments for women and mainstreaming gender in Pakistan’s revenue bodies. The participants from international FCDO programmes and offices and other development partners attended. REMIT’s key government and private sector partners also participated to validate the work done by REMIT. Here it would be pertinent to mention that REMIT was able to initiate and implement the gender-specific taxation reform interventions at the time of the FCDO pause by leveraging the team’s technical expertise as well as forging innovative partnerships.

PROBLEM-DRIVEN ITERATIVE APPROACH FOR A SIMPLER
BUSINESS REGISTRATION PROCESS

Creating an enabling environment where businesses become competitive in the local and global spheres, is one of the important facilitative responsibilities of the government. Globally, market entry for businesses has been made easier and swifter plus pre-establishment requirements and business registration across different tiers of the economy are now a matter of hours. Keeping in view the global best practices, Board of Investment (BOI) in collaboration with Revenue Mobilisation Investment and Trade (REMIT) programme identified and engaged several departments of Government of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (GoKP) for integrating Asaan Karobaar Portal- a One Stop Shop of GoKP with SECP by adopting Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) approach. The departments have completed technical discussions and are ready to integrate and sign Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with SECP in near future.

This would enable curtailing processing time, ensuring information integrity, eliminating redundant processes, and promoting sharing of information between Government departments to avoid repetitive procedures of due diligence.

REMIT BECAME PART OF THE FIRST-EVER SOUTH PUNJAB
DEEP DIVE ON GENDER MAINSTREAMING

The REMIT team became a part of the first-ever South Punjab UN-led deep dive on gender mainstreaming. This was the first such initiative on gender that followed the UN development deep dive after the South Punjab Secretariat became functional.

REMIT led the panel of Women’s Economic Participation and Empowerment to offer concrete recommendations through public-private partnerships as well as through the REMIT’s Economy
for All group

SETTING UP ECONOMY FOR ALL GROUP

Economy for All was a group set up by REMIT as a sounding board to ensure gender and inclusion in all programme interventions. The group include large, medium and small private business CEOs and top leadership, women business groups/bodies representatives/industry associations, chambers, thinktanks, financial experts and thought leaders in the area

REMIT’s sessions with this group were instrumental in getting REMIT key partnerships for its female taxpayers facilitation training and women business facilitation and networking activities