KARACHI: The hike in energy rates is the biggest issue of our economy, as we are the highest tax paying energy consumers in the world, said Ateeq Ur Rehman, economic expert

The already raised enormous electricity tariffs are a great burden on Industry and Household, further raise will become extra ordinary load on electricity consumers.

Fully endorsing the concerns of Tariq Muhammad Yousuf, President KCCI, he said: “FCA is also part of the electricity tariff but it seems that the public is being put in double jeopardy by applying increase in FCA separately along with hike electricity base tariff under IMF’s agreement”. Raise in electricity tariff will increase the cost of production and cost of doing business.

He said we are gradually being pushed out of international competition due to higher cost of electricity; eventually our exports are going down day by day, which is not a good sign for the national economy.

He further said that the common man is under pressure of rising electricity cost, affecting them miserably.

In majority of the cases the electricity bill is more than their salaries, he said, adding the government has to protect everyone to have control over economic resources, thus electricity rates should be brought down to ease household, promote industrialization and growth of SMEs.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023