The federal government on Monday removed Syed Muhammad Shabbar Zaidi as FBR chairman and appointed Nausheen Javed Amjad as the new head of the Federal Board of Revenue.

Nausheen, a Grade-22 officer of the Inland Revenue Services, was already working as acting chairperson of FBR in the absence of Zaidi, who was on leave for an indefinite period since Jan 30.

The federal cabinet approved the appointment of Nausheen and issued a formal notification.

Earlier, Shabbar Zaidi went on two weeks of medical leave which ended on January 17. He joined the office on January 20, but was not actively doing his work, officials in the FBR said.

This badly hurt the tax collection efforts of the Board. FBR faced a revenue shortfall of Rs104 billion in January as it collected Rs321 billion against the target of Rs425 billion.

Sources said that Shabbar Zaidi was annoyed after Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance Abdul Hafeez Shaikh expressed concerns over the FBR performance.

He directed Zaidi to transfer such officers as were not performing or were against the government’s reforms agenda. But Zaidi did not transfer any officer.