LAHORE: All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) Punjab Chairman Adil Bashir has criticised the distribution companies (DISCOs) for charging General Sales Tax (GST) and Withholding tax (WHT) on notified industrial tariff instead of 7.5 cents/kWh to all consumers falling in five export sectors for the months of March and April.
In a situation, he said, when Prime Minister Imran Khan is looking for the ways and means to support the export industry, the high handedness on the part of Discos is that the difference of GST and WHT on notified industrial tariff and 7.5 cents is being charged from 01-07-2019. He said the APTMA members in the FESCO region have also received electricity bills for April 2020 on notified B3 / B4 tariff instead of 7.5 cents /kWh.
Bashir said the verification certificates of falling in five export sectors issued in 12/2019 by Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) have expired on 31-03-2020. The re-validation of verification certificates by the FBR has not been provided so far, he added.
The APTMA Punjab chairman urged Minister for Energy Omar Ayub Khan to take notice of the situation and direct the DISCOs to stop charging GST and WHT on notified industrial tariff instead of 7.5 cents from 01-07-2019.
Bashir demanded that a direction should be passed to FESCO for billing the textile units for the month of April 2020 7.5 cents / kWh instead of the notified B3 / B4 tariff. The APTMA chairman has also urged FBR chairperson to issue directions for re-validation of verification certificates from April – June 2020.
