PAKISTAN
The International Tax Stamp Association (ITSA) has expressed concern over a recent decision by the Pakistan revenue authority to award a tender for a tobacco track and trace (T&T) system to the National Radio & Telecommunication Corporation (NRTC), an organization which ITSA says has close ties to the tobacco industry.
According to the ITSA, NRTC’s T&T solution is provided by Inexto, a company that depends on the tobacco industry for almost all of its revenue and that promotes the use of the industry’s own Codentify technology for T&T, there is a clear case here of Protocol transgression.
ITSA says the decision to award NRTC contravenes the obligations of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Protocol, which sets out a clear strategy for the implementation of comprehensive, industry-independent T&T systems for tobacco.ITSA chairman, Juan Carlos Yañez Arenas, also criticized the Federal Board of Revenue’s (FBR) tender process.
“Companies that may have had better credentials than NRTC and Inexto were eliminated from the process. FBR seemed to make cost the overriding consideration; it was, therefore, no coincidence that NRTC, which submitted the lowest price bid, won the contract,” he said.