Aid distribution: government urged to improve credibility, ensure transparency

Foreign aids can help mitigate floods' hardships but the government will have to improve its credibility and ensure transparency in spending financial assistance extended by local as well as foreign donors. "Not only the foreign donors, expatriate Pakistanis and the local citizens want to help government, they also need transparent and fair use of the aid".
Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) former Senior Vice President, Abdul Basit stated this while talking to Business Recorder, here on Saturday. The devastating floods have caused huge economic losses besides claiming human lives in all provinces of the country, while infrastructures including houses, buildings, roads, and poultry farms have been totally destroyed because of high floods in most parts of the country, he said. The government's plan to impose flood tax or flood surcharge can put the industry in trouble, as it is already over burdened and paying multiple taxes.
Job creation should be priority of the government rather than generating revenue, as creation of more jobs would help alleviate poverty from the country, he advised. Abdul Basit said business community wants the government to extend exemption in all kinds of taxes, including income tax and withholding tax, for at-least next two years to enable the affectees revive their businesses.
He urged the government to ensure provision of interest-free loans to the business community in the flood-ravaged parts of the country so that economic activity could get re-start. He further said the government should restrict imports equal to our exports and foreign remittance so that the balance of payment could be improved. The government should announce interest-free loans for the small and medium enterprises in the flood-affected areas of the country so that economic activities could resume as early as possible.
There is no doubt the State Bank of Pakistan has taken a very right step by announcing availability of refinancing facility to the farming community and the small businesses at concessional rates in the flood affected areas, but if the government is interested in putting the economy back on track, it would have to extend the facility to the small and medium entrepreneurs, he observed.
He said it is not the cottage industry alone that could play role for in economic revival, but the SMEs also is the area that should be focused in this regard. There is dire need of single-minded focus on devising a strategy to wear off the intensity of the economic meltdown, triggered as a result of recent flooding, he added.