The government on Wednesday sent three members and a commissioner of the National Board of Revenue into retirement in the aftermath of protests by NBR officials over revenue sector reforms.
The three NBR members are Alamgir Hossain, Hossain Ahmed and Abdur Rouf, and the commissioner is Md Shabbir Ahmed, who was serving as acting commissioner at the Barishal tax zone.
On Tuesday evening, the NBR also suspended temporarily Chattogram customs commissioner Zakir Hossain, showing disrupting by him import and export operations at the customs house as the reason.
On Wednesday, Internal Resources Division under the finance ministry issued four separate orders regarding the retirement of the NBR members and commissioner.
The orders stated that they had completed 25 years of service. In consideration of the public interest, the government deemed it necessary to retire them from government service under section 45 of the Government Service Act, 2018.
On Tuesday, Chattogram customs commissioner Zakir Hossain was suspended temporarily through an order signed by NBR chairman Abdur Rahman Khan.
According to the suspension order, Zakir has been made an officer on special duty.
The suspension order stated that despite official instructions to keep offices open to ensure uninterrupted revenue collection, he failed to comply with the directive.
By disobeying the instructions, he kept the Chattogram Customs House closed on June 28 and 29, disrupting the import and export operations.
Consequently, it was decided to initiate departmental proceedings against him following an investigation.
NBR officials had been in protest since April 29 against the government鈥檚 move to split the revenue board into two divisions. They formed a platform named the NBR Reforms Unity Council following the promulgation of the Revenue Policy and Revenue Management Ordinance 2025 by the interim government on May 12. The ordinance dissolved the revenue board and split it into two divisions under the finance ministry to modernise tax administration and boost revenue collection.
Since the issuance of the ordinance, the NBR officials had held a series of sit-ins, pen-down strikes, and non-cooperation with the NBR chairman in May and June, protesting against the government鈥檚 move and demanding the removal of the NBR chairman.
At the peak of the movement on Saturday and Sunday, all operations at customs houses, VAT offices and income tax offices came to a halt due to their 鈥榗omplete shutdown鈥� programme.
Following the disruption, the government on Sunday took a tough stance on the protests and declared all NBR services as 鈥榚ssential services鈥�.
On Sunday, the protesting NBR officials under the NBR Reforms Unity Council withdrew their protest programmes.
The Anti-Corruption Commission launched investigations into allegations of corruption against 11 NBR officials, including leaders of the protests, in two phases.
NBR sources said that more officials might face dismissal or other disciplinary measures in the coming days.