KARACHI: President of SITE Association of Industry(SAI), Riaz Uddin has expressed serious concern on the news of proposed hike in power tariff under IMF conditionality and rejected any such increase in power tariff for industries in particular. He further argued the wisdom behind expecting the achievement of an upward-revised FBR tax collection target of 7.6 trillion rupees since that is impossible amid prevailing crunch and contraction of economy.
“Such ruthless measures, if taken, shall pose serious risk to the continuity of business activities, threatening closure of industries,” he said, adding that the news of jacking up of the power tariff for industry to Rs.80 per unit—as being considered—shall turnout to be a death knell for domestic industry, resulting in massive unemployment and job losses across the country at a time when job creation avenues are desperately needed.
The SITE President has appealed to the Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar to come up with prudent and indigenously made economic policies to tackle the grave crisis which the economy of our beloved country is facing.
Riaz Uddin further demanded that an urgent meeting of the stakeholders from the business community may be summoned for a candid conversation and for considering all possible options to take the country jointly out of the current quagmire.