KARACHI: Echoing the collective concerns of the business, industry and trade community of Pakistan, Irfan Iqbal Sheikh, President Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), has termed the latest PKR. 7.5 /kWh hike in the electricity tariff as anti-business.
We have already become uncompetitive vis-à-vis regional and sub-regional countries; due to the grossly unfavourable cost of doing business environment in the country and there is no way we can absorb the added burden, he added.
Irfan Iqbal Sheikh said that Prime Minister and Finance Minister need to immediately take stock of the brewing frustration; defaults on electricity bills; impending bankruptcies and not meeting the export orders, adding they should start the much needed consultative process with the business community.
He explained that businesses were already paying close to PKR 60/ kWh – when accounted for all billing components, i.e., base tariff, surcharges, sales tax, income tax, excise duty, fuel adjustment charges (FAC) and fixed charges. He said now this massive increase will bring the business, industrial and commercial activities to a complete halt.
He maintained that rather than burdening the regularly paying consumers of electricity, the government needs to curb electricity theft and control line losses as it will plug the leakages from system and generate revenues for the government.
He added that as the President of the apex body, he is under tremendous pressure from all 250 trade bodies, associations, chambers and sectors to negotiate with the government on their behalf, and persuade it to withdraw the latest hike. I hope that the better sense will prevail, he added.
Sheikh explained that the cost of electricity results in a multiplier effect through increasing the cost of doing business at every stage – from production to delivery to the end-consumer.
He questioned that when the IMF itself has recently admitted that Pakistan did not receive adequate aid in the aftermath of the most devastating floods of its history, why the government is still not being able to present their case?
Irfan Iqbal Sheikh added that the business community is the most peace-loving & law-abiding community of the country. They run the economy and the country through generating taxes, employment and economic growth, but they are being incessantly mistreated through untimely, regressive and anti-business measures.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023