The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) on Friday welcomed the Supreme Court of Pakistan's suo motu on power outages and hoped that electricity situation would improve resultantly. The LCCI President Farooq Iftikhar in a statement said that unavailability of electricity is not only rendering thousands of industrial workers jobless but also causing closures and deceleration in economic activities.
"The power shortage has also adversely affected competitiveness at national level when the industry in other provinces is producing goods by using electricity, the manufacturers in Punjab doing the same through thermal means," he said. The LCCI President said that investments, local and foreign, have nose-dived to alarmingly low levels. The FDI from July to March 2012-13 was only 0.622 billion dollars.
"Foreign Direct Investment is a barometer of favourable business atmosphere, if foreigners keep on investing, the country is good, its people are good, its policies are good and it is other way round, if they are reluctant to put their money in any new or existing business venture," he added. He said that there are no two opinions about it that the Caretaker Government in no way is responsible for the power sector mess but they can do a little favour to the country through good governance practices.
The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry, being a representative of the trade and industry, understands that at the core of growing power troubles lie a confused energy policy and disjointed decision-making, the weak finances of the government, inefficient and corrupt generation and distribution systems, and bureaucratic hurdles stalling a change in the energy mix to boost output and decrease electricity cost. The growth in the demand for electricity so far outpaced the insignificant increase in the supply, he said.
The LCCI President said it is beyond doubt that there are no quick fixes to energy problems. This requires a long-term integrated policy, after which privatisation of power and gas utilities could become possible to attract private investment and change the energy mix to reduce dependence on expensive oil. But, before taking these measures, the government would have to arrange finances to liquidate fast piling up circular debt that has reached Rs 872.41 billion during the current fiscal year and power cuts shaved 3-4 percent of GDP. Farooq Iftikhar expressed the optimism that the Supreme Court proceedings would help bring to the limelight the corruption and mismanagement causing irreparable loss to the economy of this resourceful country.