The latest World Bank report on reform targets as carried in yesterday's issue of The Daily Star comes as an analytically precise vindication of what the Prime Minister observed in her address at the annual function of the civil service officials of the taxation department. It found that although an agency named Survey Zones of the Taxes Department (SZTD), responsible for internal and external surveys to identify new tax payers is very much there, its efficiency has so far been far below the desired level. Whether for the reason of its being under-equipped or for the absence of professional excellence among the concerned officials, income tax and Value Added Tax (VAT) as two sources replenishing the government coffer have failed to yield to their potential. Efforts are badly required as the report observed to expand the low coverage of income tax and VAT. The message is loud and clear. We have a system in place but it is bedevilled by loopholes that can range from procedural complications to individual inefficiency.

The report spotted some specific areas where a touch of improvement is immediately sought. It does no good to the conception of performance and efficiency that no effort has been made yet to compile available information from various official and business sources and to consider how the information provided by the VAT and importers' registration list could be exploited for the purpose. A similar absence of drive has been detected in the case of internal surveys. These are agonising revelations that only serve painful reminders as to how much we need to gear ourselves up in this sector for a really effective tax system to be In place.

More than anything else the element we need for a discernible improvement in this sector is as the report observed strong political commitment. The government and the opposition both have to wake up to the evaluative surveys of international financial institution like the World Bank. Harping on the legacy of crippled administrative system will do us no good. The civil servants entrusted with vital job of operating the whole system of revenue collection have to place professional obligation and excellence ahead of any other consideration.