ISLAMABAD: The visiting UAE president announcement to cancel the trip has not only wasted one-day holiday in the capital city but also caused losses in millions of rupees due to the closure of trading houses, industries, and no work for daily wagers.
However, it helped the federal government to save fuel and electricity by keeping government and private offices closed.
It is not clear when the UAE president’s visit will be rescheduled and either Islamabad Capital Territory Administration will announce one-day holiday again.
On Monday, Marriyum Aurangzeb, minister for information announced, “Due to weather conditions, President HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s visit to the friendly Islamic Republic of Pakistan scheduled for today has been postponed to a later date. His Highness was scheduled to pay an official visit today to Pakistan to discuss the friendship and cooperation relations between the UAE and Pakistan and ways to enhance them in various fields”.
Acting President Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industries Faad Waheed told Business Recorder that the holiday had cost millions of rupees in economic activities in the city. Traffic remained off the road, industrial units, trading centres, and some shopping centres were closed which cast a negative impact on the business.
He said the chamber of commerce had 10,000 members including 2,000 industries in the capital city. “Closure of transport, industries, and business community resulted in no work for a large number of daily wagers attached to these sectors”, he added.
The total strength of federal employees in the country is 565,000 and most of them are working in ministries, divisions and other government departments in Islamabad according to the annual statistical bulletin of federal government employees for 2019-20. The essential staff of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), and other government offices was present but these offices were not open for public dealing.
Most of the educational institutions including public and private schools, colleges, and universities decided to remain closed and some shifted the classes to online mode. Few institutes rescheduled the examinations due to the holiday.
Ajmal Baloch, president of the traders’ unions said that such holidays had a negative impact on the overall sale of traders which resulted in revenue loss to the government.
According to a notification issued from the office of Deputy Commissioner Islamabad January 30 was declared as a local holiday within the revenue limits of Islamabad except offices of essential services including the MCI, the CDA, the ICT administration, police, IESCO, SNGPL, and hospitals.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023