(August-12-2024)
The Chairman of the FPCCI Advisory Board and National Business Group Pakistan, President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, and All Karachi Industrial Alliance, as well as former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain, said on Monday that the current price of electricity is harmful for production, business, employment, and exports.
He said that the destructive policy of continuous increases in energy prices makes it impossible to reduce inflation and improve people’s living conditions.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that official data on inflation is not in line with ground realities, as people are suffering more than seen by authorities.
Speaking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that essential commodities cannot be affordable when energy prices are continuously increasing.
The price of all essential commodities is subject to the cost of energy and transport, and giving some kind of relief to the people by increasing the cost of energy can only be possible in rhetoric, he observed.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that the electricity prices and taxes on them have affected the people badly, and they have not been able to meet their other monthly expenses.
People are taking out loans and selling jewellery and other household items, but this method of raising funds to pay bills cannot last for long.
Now the situation is that electricity prices have pushed forty percent of people below the poverty line, and their number continues to increase. Instead of eradicating poverty, the impoverished face trials.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that Jamaat-e-Islami’s protest against electricity rates and taxes was a very positive step. This protest was not intended for political purposes, but rather to alleviate the nation’s suffering, and those who colluded with IPPs have exposed themselves by not participating.
As soon as Jamaat-e-Islami’s protest over the government’s assurances ended, the government proved its helplessness in front of the people by increasing the electricity rate by 2.56 rupees.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that in the current situation, neither the government is doing anything to reduce inflation nor the efforts of the State Bank are getting any benefit.
Only by putting aside the mafia’s interests and initiating trade with India, which offers numerous food items at significantly lower prices than Pakistan, can we reduce inflation.
The importation of food from India will break the back of the Pakistani mafia, which is not acceptable to some people.
Similarly, smugglers only benefit from the cheaper goods in Iran and Afghanistan. Legal trade with neighbours can balance imports and exports to some extent, saving millions of dollars.
