Leader of the newly established political entity, Awam Pakistan Party (APP), and former Federal Finance minister, Dr Miftah Ismail, has urged the government to waive for the next four months advance income tax and sales tax recovered from the domestic consumers as part of their electricity bills to phenomenally decrease the electricity rates in the country.
Speaking at a press conference here at the Press Club on Saturday, the former Finance minister said that his suggestion of withdrawing the taxes on domestic power consumers would help in reducing the electricity rates by 24 per cent.
Dr Ismail suggested that the continuing hardships of the domestic power consumers would be resolved to a large extent if the government took the policy decision of waiving these taxes on electricity bills in the summer months every year.
He said that levying 18 per cent sales tax and 7.5 per cent income tax on the electricity bills was a highly unjust act on the part of the government.
Dr Ismail told media persons that the 18 per cent General Sales Tax levied on the furnace oil and LNG imported for electricity generation was another reason behind heightened energy costs in the country. He said the taxes on fuel supplied to the power plants producing electricity for the national grid should be withdrawn by the government.
He lamented that an electricity consumer whose monthly bill had been Rs 6,000 in the past years had increased to Rs 76,000 in recent months.
The APP leader said that power consumers in rural areas had to pay inflated power bills despite enduring hours-long power loadshedding.
He lamented that the government hadn’t been ready to curtail its non-essential expenditures despite the severe economic hardship caused to the masses due to inflated electricity bills. The APP leader noted that the government hadn’t been taking any substantial step to reduce the unbearable electricity rates.
He opined that the government shouldn’t harm its agreement with the IMF to reduce the electricity rates but should curtail its lavish expenditures. He said that overbilling was a nationwide issue in the energy sector and the government should take immediate steps to overcome this problem. He urged the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority to play its due role in this regard.
Dr Ismail recalled that a law had been passed in the regime of former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to set up new power plants under the competitive bidding regime (to ensure electricity production at the lowest rates in the country). Still, later on, this law had been amended in the subsequent regime.
He announced that APP would stage a peaceful protest outside K-Electric Head Office in Gizri on Sunday (July 28) against the inflated power bills sent to Karachiites.
Miftah Ismail urges govt to waive taxes on domestic bills for four months to phenomenally reduce electricity cost
