KARACHI – Former President of Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) Dr. Shahid Rasheed Butt on Tuesday said Pandora leaks have exposed financial secrets of billionaires, politicians, and public officials that can result in more political and economic instability.
It has exposed the nobility that is plundering poor countries for personal gains and decision of the Prime Minister Imran Khan to probe and punish the wrongdoers is laudable, he said.
Shahid Rasheed Butt said that the business community condemn power companies for their overbilling which is going on for two months.
Despite good weather, the consumers have been receiving inflated power bills and they are forced to pay from 100 percent to 200 percent inflated bills by the power distributors while the regulator seems to be hand in glove, he observed.
The Supreme Court should probe this daylight robbery and punish the culprits, as it is impossible that the consumption of millions of consumers increases manyfold without any reason.
The business leader noted that the steep fall of the rupee is not natural and it is against the economic principles.
He said that a strengthened dollar has added to the debt by almost Rs1.75 trillion which must be probed.
He accepted that increased imports and some other factors have increased pressure on the rupee but it is not as much as the masses are told.
The fall of the rupee has added almost Rs1700 billion to the debt and around Rs70 billion to the interest payable to the lenders.
It has triggered inflation, increased cost of production and it is set to hit exports as imported raw material is used in exports which have become costly, he said.
He noted that the rupee has been repeated many times in the past on the pretext of increasing exports but it has never worked as expected but it forces the authorities to increase interest rates, power tariff and price of fuel as we have seen during the past month.
Wrong decisions are taking tool on the economy and masses and if the governor of State Bank cannot control the dollar he should leave immediately, he demanded.
