The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has expressed deep concern over awful and continuous prolonged loadshedding and urged the government to ensure equitable power cuts in all parts of the country.
The LCCI President Irfan Qaiser Sheikh said on Thursday that only because of ongoing energy crisis the province of Punjab had lost almost two percent of its GDP which means a net loss of Rs 200 billion with a closure of 40 percent of the industry while another 10 to 15 percent industry is on the verge of closure if the Federal government fails to take immediate remedial measures.
He said that the private sector is engine of the growth but it would be unable to give desired results if it would not be provided an enabling environment. He added that it was very strange and beyond the understanding of the business community that the government was unmoved despite repeated LCCI appeals for equitable loadshedding across the country.
"How the government would establish its writ and from where it would collect revenues to run its day-to-day affairs when the industrial wheel is coming to a grinding halt," he questioned?
The LCCI President said that unemployment, price hikes, industrial closures always give birth to lawlessness and anarchy. Therefore, the government should understand the ground realities and reset its priorities regarding provision of electricity to the industry. He said the industry needs continuous supply of electricity to keep the units operational and to complete the export orders well within the given timeframe but only because of the shortage of electricity the exports are not up to the mark.
Irfan Qaiser Sheikh said that Pakistan had already lost a number of global markets and the new power cuts would further aggravate the situation. He said that cheaper and uninterrupted power supply is only way to achieve economic targets set for the year 2012-13 but neither the government is sharing its future plans to this regard nor paying any heed to the difficulties being faced by the trade and industry.
The LCCI President also feared surge in street crimes, saying that law and order situation is bound to aggravate in the coming days as repeated power outages in the industrial estates is jacking up the graph of unemployment particularly hitting the daily wagers hard.
He said that crisis in industrial sector is not only causing flight of capital and relocation of industrial units to the countries like Bangladesh and Malaysia but had also reduced government revenues drastically. He said that a similar situation had erupted about two years ago but that was resolved with the help of the business community which provided input in devising a viable load management plan. The LCCI President urged the President and Prime Minister to take notice of this grave situation and act promptly to save industrial and social fabric of the country.
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