KARACHI: President Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry (KCCI) Muhammad Jawed Bilwani has appealed the government to immediately reinstate six working days for federal and provincial governments and all their relevant authorities, institutions, and departments to uplift the economy and facilitate trade and industry.
In a letter sent to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, President KCCI stated that since 2011, the business community has constantly been facing a lot of hardships due to additional weekly holidays every Saturday being observed by the ministries, government departments, State Bank of Pakistan, Federal Board of Revenue, Pakistan Stock Exchange, financial & banking institutions.
“Shipping companies also observe holiday on Saturday with no service which causes difficulties in handling export/ import consignments and results in heavy demurrage and detention charges,” he said, adding that due to unavailability of banking services on Saturday, commercial/ trading activities suffer badly and the businesspersons working with GCC countries also face additional difficulties as these countries observe weekly holiday on Friday, leaving no other choice but to carry out financial transactions with GCC countries for four days a week.
He also noted that commercial centres, wholesale and retail networks across the country also face severe difficulties in depositing cash due to the unavailability of Banking Services on Saturdays which poses security risks as people have to keep their monies safe during two weekly holidays and it has been observed that cash snatching incidents reportedly rise on Saturday.
Jawed Bilwani recalled that the federal government notified the decision to observe five working days per week on 13th October 2011 to conserve electricity as the country, at that point in time, was facing acute energy shortages, resulting in prolonged load-shedding and breakdowns for hours.
“At this juncture in 2024, our country has no dearth of energy and the Energy ministry has highlighted that the country was getting energy/ power in excess of the demand whereas the government is giving away capacity payments to IPPs that remain idle,” he said, adding that the current state of affairs demands to utilize maximum power capacity to run industries, operate trading houses, commercial centers at their optimal level but this can be practically done when the government notifies six working days.
He also mentioned that the business community has been facing inconvenience in the wake of present five working days being observed by the government which provides 40 working hours in a week and very often most of the Government servants leave their offices after Namaz-e-Jumma on Friday which further decreases weekly working time to 36 hours.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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