Businessmen urge PM to freeze ‘controversial levy’ as bills climb into tens of millions of rupees
KARACHI:
The Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) and the seven industrial city associations and textile exporters’ bodies, while expressing deep concern over the exorbitant and retrospective gas bills, have urged the Prime Minister and ministers of the Petroleum and Power Division to urgently take cognizance of the ‘anti-industry measure’ which threatens to shut down factories, cripple exports and make Pakistan an import-dependent economy.
Speaking at a joint press conference at the KCCI on Thursday, business leaders called on the government to immediately freeze the controversial levy billed retrospectively for four months, which has increased gas bills from millions to tens of millions of rupees, an unbearable burden for industrial companies.
Businessmen Group (BMG) Chairman Zubair Motiwala, who joined the press conference via Zoom, recalled that during Pervez Musharraf’s tenure, industries were encouraged to set up captive power plants (CPPs) to tide over the power crisis, with clear assurance that gas would be provided to them.
However, he lamented that the recent hike in gas tariffs, coupled with heavy taxes and levies, had made captive power generation unsustainable, turning the billions of rupees invested in these plants into a complete waste.
“It seems that the IMF wants to make our economy an import-led economy,” he remarked and asked the government to compare the cost of doing business in Pakistan with that of India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, China, Cambodia and Vietnam.
The textile sector, comprising seven stages of manufacturing, depends on energy at every level. “When energy costs are much higher than those of Bangladesh, how can we compete? Give us the same cost of doing business, if we still fail, hold us responsible,” he stressed.
Motiwala condemned the imposition of a levy of Rs791 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) on CPPs, introduced on the pretext of cost difference with grid electricity. “In reality, no such difference exists,” he said.
