President, Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), Mohammad Saeed Shafiq has urged the Managing Director Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) to uphold decision of increase in water tariff by 82 percent and sit down with KCCI along with the major water consuming industries representatives and bring rationale into the whole matter.
In a letter to the managing director, he made it clear that the decision of exorbitant increase in tariff was taken in his absence. He said that during meeting held on August 1, 2011, this item of agenda was discussed before he joined the meeting. This should be absolutely clear and indicated to all concerned that he, President KCCI, was not the party and did not and cannot agree to this kind of unprecedented increase in water tariff.
He said please record this letter as part of the minutes and his statement on the subject. He fully believes that this increase has been initiated to offset the inefficiency of KWSB and collection of bills resulting into loss of more than 45 percent of the revenue in terms of failure of collection of due bills and in terms of water pilferage and leakages and certainly he cannot be a party where the decision has been taken to penalise the honest payer for the dishonesty of others.
It seems that this proposal has been tabled to set the impact of unscrupulous elements stealing water and not paying the due bills, it will certainly strengthen the unscrupulous elements in the business and those honest users of water would be put to more uncompetitive. He emphasised that the value-added sector where water is a basic raw material cannot sustain this kind of an increase and KWSB must reconsider its decision as bulk consumers they are also the backbone of the economy responsible for exports of more than 60 percent is subsisted to this kind of harsh treatment.
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