Multan businessmen reiterate opposition to RGST

Business community has advised the government to refrain from imposing unresolved and controversial RGST, as the real stakeholders are not in favour of it. Khawaja Muhammad Shafiq a leader of the business community said the Governor State Bank of Pakistan has recently informed that the government has so far printed currency notes worth Rs 1,500 billion to meet its expenses. He said this trend is alarming and would result in massive inflation in the country.
"I met with Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani and begged him to take corrective measures to rescue the ailing economy," Khawaja Muhammad Jalaluddin Roomi former Punjab Minister for Industries and Chairman of APBUMA said adding the government has also given in to IMF, which is demanding imposition of taxes and increase in prices of utilities without realising the fact that the poor would be pushed further beyond the poverty line.
"IMF negotiators don't bother how the poor people of Pakistan will manage to pay the taxes and utilities, all they are concerned with is their unrealistic demands," Roomi said. He warned that the people and the business community are not in a position to pay additional taxes or high prices of utilities any more and the government should plug the revenue pilferage and generate other resources to meet its expenses.
The President of Multan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (MCCI), Shahid Naseem Khokhar warned the government should refrain from imposing RGST as it is only meant to further squeeze the tax payer and poor consumers. He vowed to fight for the rights of business community and resist imposition of RGST, which is being imposed at the behest of IMF. He said that the government has failed miserably to solve any problem due to which the ministers and public representatives are avoiding to come on the public forums such as MCCI. He said the concerned ministers would be brought to face the stakeholders and "they have to come to these forums even on a few hour notice."
Shahid Naseem Khokhar said in his welcome address that the state of economy is in a real shambles and banks' non-performing loans have reached to about Rs 500 billion. He said that about Rs 300 billion to Rs 500 billion are pilferaged every year due to corruption in FBR while a similar amount of Rs 500 billion are being sucked by the public sector organisations including PIA, Steel Mills, Pakistan Railways, etc due to massive corruption and political appointment of the management in these organisations. He advised the government to mend its ways and control its lavish spending otherwise the country may be heading towards default.