February 16-2023) Former President of Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) Dr. Shahid Rasheed Butt on Thursday said the top officials of the rich Western countries are stunned by the life style of Pakistani politicians and bureaucrats.
The officials of IMF, World Bank, and other international organizations are always surprised to see the expenses of Pakistan’s political elite and bureaucrats when they visit the west to get loans, he added.
Shahid Rasheed Butt said that no one believes that the politicians and bureaucrats living like kings have come from a poor country.
No country or institution is interested in lending to a country where all resources are allocated to the elite, the people are treated as slaves, revenue is not raised and loans are taken to pay off the debt.
The business leader said that despite taking loans from the IMF twenty-four times, our rulers are so incompetent that they are unable to give a plan for the repayment of the loan and this task is also fulfilled by the IMF.
IMF is not ready to trust Pakistan but on the other hand, it immediately approved a 4.7 billion dollar loan on a request of Bangladesh with some routine conditions because its reputation is much better than ours.
Shahid Rasheed Butt said that the government has increased gas prices by one hundred and thirteen percent in order to reduce the losses of gas companies, while the price of gas will be increased again in July.
Corruption plays a major role in the causes of losses of gas companies but little attention is being paid to this problem.
In Pakistan, the price of gas for the fertilizer mafia is kept three times lower than in Bangladesh, but the price of the finished products in both countries is almost the same because the government policy in Pakistan benefits the capitalist.
Similarly, Bangladesh has no separate gas tariff for the export sector, but the undue favors in this sector in Pakistan do not seem to end.
Wealthy industrialists who fund politicians get gas worth billions free of cost for their industrial units while the loss is recovered from the public, he said, adding that many industrialists get subsidized gas while people of deprived of it.
