LAHORE: The Pakistan Awami Tahreek (PAT) has asked the PML-N government to desist from imposing another tax of $1.5bn in the guise of security for new power projects.

“The new tax will be received from the people in the electricity bills,” PAT central leader Dr Hasan Mohiyuddin Qadri, son of Dr Tahirul Qadri, said here on Saturday.

Addressing a central core committee meeting here, Qadri junior warned that if the federal cabinet committee of economic coordination did not take back the summary the PAT would take to the streets.

He said domestic power consumers were already paying different kinds of taxes which had increased the rates of electricity units. “The government now wants to enhance security for the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and, for the purpose, it plans to add further burden on the poor domestic power users,” he said.

The PAT leader said even before the riches of the CPEC were harvested the poor were going to be further taxed which would further increase the power rates in the country.

Dr Hasan said that these were the acts of the government which forced our unemployed youth to adopt the path of crime and terrorism.

He said the rulers provide relief to the poor instead of wasting money on the Orange Line Train like ‘show-off’ projects.

“We have exposed the government’s anti-poor plan and now it is the duty of the parliamentarians to bring resolution in this regard to put pressure on the government,” he said.

Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2016