LAHORE: Former Federal Minister for Industries, Production and Special Initiatives Jahangir Khan Tareen while talking to a select group of journalists on Tuesday has said that political policies are not a threat to the present government but bad management of the economy could hit it hard. He believed that the current political system was stable enough but the way present rulers were handling the economy was creating a potential threat. He predicted that inflation could rise by 20 percent in the near future, rupee would further depreciate while dollar may touch the Rs 100 mark by December next year. Imprudent economic policies would lead to a big disaster, he added.
Speaking on the energy crisis, Tareen said that gas and electricity load-shedding had virtually doubled since last year. It seemed that there was no planning in the ministries concerned and everybody was busy in doing their personal work. He said that rulers should understand that a country cannot run automatically and they had to put the present mismanagement on the right track.
Tareen said that industrial, commercial and domestic consumers were facing two pronged problems as far as electricity was concerned. First, there was shortage and second its price was very high. He said that this was also a result of bad governance. Giving an example he pointed out that five plants having a collective capacity of around 1000 MW were closed due to a cut in gas supply. The power generated from these plants cost Rs 5.50 per unit while the energy being produced through furnace oil was Rs 15 per unit. Electricity from the Turkish rental power plant would be even more expensive, he added. He said that the government should have foreseen the shortage of electricity well before hand and instead of providing gas to fertilizer factories, it should have diverted it to these power plants so that 1000 MW could have been produced cheaply. Alternatively, fertilizer could have been imported while this diversion was taking place. This would keep the industrial wheel turning and also slow down the increase in electricity tariffs. He went on to say that if present policies continued we would not only be seeing prolonged loadshedding but the gas crisis may stretch to summer in coming years.
Talking about Reformed General Sales Tax (RGST), he said the whole nation was united against this tax and that according to government circles tax evasion in our country was to the tune of Rs 400 billion. The government should correct the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) first, plug this evasion of tax, impose tax on all the sectors and then go for this RGST with a lower rate.
He said that all the cabinet members and parliamentarians first should make public what they were paying in the name of taxes and then ask the nation to contribute to the revenue. He also called for taxing all income including those earned overseas.
