The hosiery manufacturers have alleged that former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has been responsible for the present energy crisis, bringing around 50 percent industrial units to complete closure--in Punjab alone.
They also demanded of the country's legislative body to hold him accountable for deliberately keeping the nation in the dark about the future energy crisis and failure in coping with it prior to its occurrence.
Hosiery manufacturers told Business Recorder on Monday that the new government should bring Shaukat back and try him under accountability courts for pushing the country into trouble.
"There is electricity load shedding every two hours across the province. Industrialists cannot afford high cost of production, which slows output, resulting in delay in shipments to European and US markets," said the chairman of Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers Association (PHMA), Punjab, Shahzad Azam Khan, on phone from Lahore.
About one working shift is cumulatively lost every 24 hours only because of unavailability of energy to all manufacturing units, he said, and added that timely shipment of the foreign orders of hosiery items was becoming difficult with the passage of every single day.
"Now," he said, "the foreign buyers have come to know about the permanent energy crisis engulfing the country with no immediate end, and are planning to convert orders to some other country of the region like Bangladesh or India. This will be another disaster which the entire textile industry may not survive."
About the year's hosiery textile target, he said that it was unrealistic and inflated. "Shaukat Aziz quoted wrong figures to show that the country's economy was growing fast, while he knew that energy crisis was going to hit the country, and did nothing," he said.
Some 20 letter, Tariq Aziz wrote to Liaquat Jatoi, former minister for water and power, about the raising energy output and despite this, the government never attempted to work out a solution. It was a criminal act on the part of former government," he said.
Recent surge in the electricity tariff by nine percent will give rise to cost of production further by 20 percent, he pointed out and said that an immediate policy in this connection with consultation of all relevant stakeholders is badly needed to resolve the issues.
Demanding of the government, he said that it should increase the research and development assistance from 3 percent to 10 percent in line with the Indian government's scheme of technology upgradation fund. He also suggested that the government should chalk out a plan to carry out load-shedding in industrial zones identifying manufacturing sectors that which of them should be given more electricity or less.
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