Former Federal Minister for Industries, Production and Special Initiatives Jahangir Khan Tareen said Tuesday that wrong management of economy can be a real threat to the present government. Talking to a select group of journalists.
Tareen, who is also the parliamentary head of the Pakistan Muslim League (Functional) in the National Assembly, said that political system was stable but the way present rulers were managing the economy was creating a potential threat for them. He said imprudent economic policies would be leading to a big disaster.
Tareen observed that inflation could rise by 20 percent in the time to come, while he also predicted that rupee would further depreciate and may reach to Rs 100 against dollar by December next. Such development would naturally lead to a series of price hike, creating severe problems for the masses. Tareen said that industrial, commercial and domestic consumers were facing two-pronged problems as far as electricity was concerned. First there was shortage of it and second its price was very high. He said that it was too a result of poor governance.
He said that five plants having a collective capacity of around 1,000 mw were closed due to suspension of gas to them. The power generated from these plants cost Rs 5.50 per unit while the energy being produced through furnace oil was Rs 15 per unit. While the Turkish rental power plant would produce even costlier, he added. He said that if present policies continued we would not only be seeing prolonged loadshedding but this gas crisis may stretch to summer in coming years.
Talking about Reformed General Sales Tax (RGST), he said that whole nation was united against this tax. He said that according to the government circles tax evasion in our country was to the tune of Rs 400 billion. The government should plug this evasion of tax, impose tax on all the sectors and then go for the RGST with a lower rate.
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