PESHAWAR, July 10: The local business community has expressed reservation over the passage of the NWFP Agriculture and Livestock Produce Act, 2007, by the provincial assembly.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, Liaqat Ahmad Khan, president of the Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Ghulam Sarwar Mohmand, Director of the Industrial Development Corporation, urged the governor not to sign the bill.

They claimed that the provincial assembly had adopted the bill in haste as no stakeholder had been taken into confidence during its preparation.

They feared the bill would hamper market liberalisation and deprive thousands of people of their sources of livelihood.

They said the bill clashed with certain clauses of the Local Government Ordinance (LGO-2001) and the Constitution that offered liberty to individuals to start a business.

They said that after the enforcement of the new law, town and tehsil administrations would have the authority to issue licences to private markets which, they added, would affect the growth of business activities and subsequently increase the ratio of unemployment in the province.

The business leaders appealed to the governor to send back the bill to the assembly for a revision.