ISLAMABAD, FEB 5: /DNA/ – The Chairman of the National Business Group Pakistan, the President of the Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, the President of the All Karachi Industrial Alliance, the Chairman of the FPCCI Advisory Board, and the President and former provincial minister, Mian Zahid Hussain, said on Wednesday that national development is impossible without cheap electricity.
He said that the government should prioritize reducing electricity rates so that the public and the business community can breathe a sigh of relief and the pace of the country’s development can be increased.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that the FPCCI has continuously drawn policymakers’ attention to the pillaging of IPPs, which has resulted in several canceled and changed IPP contracts.
Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that negotiating with IPPs has saved the national exchequer Rs 400 billion, and the government has also promised a reasonable reduction in electricity tariffs.
He noted that due to the profiteering of IPPs, electricity tariffs in Pakistan are the highest in the region, while the economy has also suffered heavy losses.
He added that electricity has become so expensive that the commoner and industries cannot pay their bills.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that the electricity price must be urgently reduced to Rs 25 per unit. This will impact every sector, including the public and the economy, and make industrial and agricultural production cheaper.
He observed that this would enable Pakistan’s exports to increase by at least five billion dollars annually and facilitate the repayment of global debts.
Mian Zahid Hussain further said that the current government is constantly trying to improve economic affairs, which has resulted in the inflation rate coming down to two percent and the bank markup also being reduced by ten percent.
The business leader said that some people are engaged in continuous and unjustified protests amid an improving economic situation. The hopes these people had pinned on the newly elected US president could not be fulfilled.
He said that the armed forces of Pakistan are constantly sacrificing their precious lives to crush terrorism; it is very sad to drag them into politics, and now the frustrated politicians are planning protests in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Lahore.
He said that these elements have failed twice in Punjab and that success this time is unlikely, so they should join the country’s construction and development and play a positive role so that their negative impression can be remedied.
