ICCI President Muzamil Hussain Sabri presses government to withdraw all unfair charges to provide relief to people and to bring down cost of doing business
ISLAMABAD: Businessmen in a meeting at the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) on Monday condemned the Pakistan Muslim league-Nawaz (PML-N) government for 43 paisas per unit increase in electricity tariff from October under the “IMF pressure”.
Addressing the meeting, ICCI President Muzamil Hussain Sabri said the government has already collected over Rs 70 billion from the consumers in the recent massive overbilling. He pressed the government to withdraw all unfair charges to provide relief to the people and to bring down the cost of doing business in the country.
He said the hike in power tariff had always created problems for the economy, adding that the government should take urgent measures to reduce the transmission and distribution losses, control power theft and bring transparency in the working of power companies to improve things.
The ICCI president said the government should also focus on enhancing the share of hydropower generation to produce cheap electricity. Sabri said the hydropower cost Rs 0.08/kWh compared to Rs 18.25/kWh furnace oil.
Sabri said that the power tariff in Pakistan was already highest in the region due to which cost of doing business had gone high and industrial growth suffered badly. Under such circumstances, further increase in the tariff was tantamount to discourage growth of business activities and new investment in the country.
He said energy prices were highly correlated to the economic growth rate as affordable tariff gave boost to business and industrial activities, but higher tariff in Pakistan led to the stagnation of industry, increased production cost, hiked inflation. He said the government should give due consideration to these facts and avoid making any further increase in power tariff.
He said electricity consumers in Pakistan have to pay for the inefficient and poor performance of power companies because the government tended to include transmission and distribution losses, power theft, debt servicing costs of power companies and development surcharges in the power tariff.
Sabri pressed the government to streamline the power sector affairs to facilitate the growth of industrialisation and economic activities.
