ISLAMABAD, AUG 24 /DNA/ – Former President of the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI), Dr. Shahid Rasheed Butt, said on Saturday that Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s efforts to reduce the cost of electricity are valuable.
He said the PM is eager to provide some relief to the masses as the cost of electricity has become a severe issue in the country.
The government is negotiating with the IPP owners and trying to shift coal-fired power plants to local coal while also installing smart meters instead of conventional meters, which are laudable.
Shahid Rasheed Butt said in a statement issued here today that the main reason for the sharp increase in the price of electricity is the drastic reduction in the currency’s value on the insistence of lenders and exporters, which has been followed for the last eight years without considering implications.
He blamed the constant devaluation of the currency, which has led to a massive increase in debt that the country has lost the ability to repay.
He said that for many decades, no government has tried to cut down expenditures but increased them drastically for political purposes, which was met by borrowing and printing currency, which also devalued the rupee.
The central bank tried to stop the rupee depreciation in these circumstances, but they did not help much. Shahid Rashid Butt said that apart from exporters, there is a powerful lobby of importers in Pakistan, which never allowed imports to decrease.
A former prime minister spent eighty billion dollars on imports in a year to get the honour of achieving 6% GDP growth, which led to the country’s bankruptcy. The solution to all these problems is to increase dependence on alternative sources of electricity, reduce costs, and increase exports.
, Dr. Shahid Rasheed){kind=link}