Trading community of Multan on Wednesday rejected the measures aimed at energy conservation and boosting tax collection terming it disastrous for the country and fatal for the economy.
"The prevailing tough situation is direct result of incompetent governance, while measures announced by the authorities amounts to economic annihilation of the business community," said leaders including Khawaja Muhammad Shafiq, Khalid Mehmood Qureshi, Malik Nazir Ahmed Awan, Tariq Mehmood Malik, Sultan Mehmood Malik at a hurriedly called conference.
They said that energy conservation measures and new income tax forms would result in massive unemployment, which would trigger unrest as well as extremism. They said that business community and masses were not ready to pay the price of incompetence of the government functionaries.
Khawaja Suleman Siddiqui, central Vice President of Anjuman Tajiran, said that decisions taken by the bureaucracy without consulting stakeholders had proved useless in the past and it would not work in the future. Trade leaders of the ancient city of Multan and Southern Punjab said that those who had always cheated trading community and ditched them for personal interests had now formed a new group in the traders to sabotage the movement.
Malik Nazir Ahmed Awan, Chairman of All Pakistan Cantonments Anjuman Tajiran, said: "We have rejected the government's energy saving plan which had already been proved a failure in recent past and it was not possible to shut the markets, shopping centres, bazaars after sunset." He said that some elements had always tried to create rifts among the ranks of traders but now their efforts would frustrate as trading community was alive and they know about the services rendered by him for the betterment of the community.