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| May 31, 2005 | Tuesday | Rabi-us-Sani 22, 1426 |
Budget relief urged for poor citizens
PESHAWAR, May 30: The Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) has urged the government to give maximum benefit to small traders, low income people and private sector employees in the federal budget. Talking to newsmen here on Sunday, the member of the SCCI executive committee and chairman of the Railways and dry port standing committee, Ziaul Haq Sarhadi, that the government should also give a say to the hard-hit segment of the society before finalizing the next budget.
“Budget usually affects common people who earn a very small amount to meet the daily expenses,” Mr Sarhadi said.
“Our economy and budgetary exercises are falling into the grip of international monetary institutions.
The government makes decisions to appease them and at times begins implementing the conditions even before formally signing agreements,” he said.
The SCCI member said the growing taxation and price hike had adversely affected the trading activities and investment process in the country. The continuous rise in the prices of petroleum, diesel, gas and electricity was inversely affecting the indigenous industry, he said.
The government instead of increasing the tariffs for electricity, gas and petroleum should facilitate Wapda in establishing new hydel power stations.
“The country has the potential to generate 40,000-mw electricity, but unfortunately we are wasting our natural resources and have allowed both foreign and domestic parties to establish thermal power houses and purchase their electricity on higher rates,” he said.
Mr Sarhadi said people were expecting maximum relief, judicious distribution of national resources and a check on the high handedness of the tax machinery in the next budget. “The business community hopes to see a trader-friendly budget with more incentives and cut in the ratio of taxes particularly the sales tax,” he said.
The promotion of small and medium entrepreneurs was a pre-requisite for poverty alleviation and arresting unemployment, he said, urging the government to consult the labour community for better acquaintance of their actual hardships and raise their salaries in proportion to the price hike.
He suggested that the government should announce simple revenue laws along with the introduction of international standard automated self-assessment system for maximum increase in the GDP.
Mr Srahadi said the government should announce a major cut in the import duties and different taxes should be unified to fix special limit for the customs duty. The sales tax should be cut down to unified 10 per cent while the advance income tax should be collected on the basis of 2 per cent, he added.
The SCCI member said that to control smuggling the government should make maximum cut on the duties of all the items in the next budget which were being smuggled.
He said export to Afghanistan should be exempted from export development surcharge (EDS) for a period of five years and the withholding tax should be lowered to the level of 0.50 per cent. Export of construction machinery to Afghanistan should be allowed.
The central board of revenue, ministry of commerce and other departments concerned should take thousands of closed or sick industrial units into consideration, he said.
Mr Sarhadi said: “Domestic auto-mobile manufacturers, despite receiving millions of rupees subsidy from the government, are importing auto-parts from other countries.”
The government and high-ranking officials should cut their unnecessary expenditures and work for a poor-friendly budget. He said that all the provinces and representatives of traders, industrialists, Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry and chambers of other major cities and experts should be consulted before announcing the national budget.—PPI
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