Opposition: KCCI chief against GIDC Bill 2015

Says entire business community will resist approval.

KARACHI: Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Iftikhar Ahmed Vohra has stated that the entire business and industrial community will resist any attempt to pass the Gas Infrastructure Development Cess (GIDC) Bill 2015 during the National Assembly session scheduled on Monday.

In 2011, after the imposition of the GIDC during the Pakistan Peoples Party’s term, 3,500 cases were filed against the government and the Supreme Court gave a stay order against the cess, stating it was a fee and not a tax, Vohra recalled.

Last year, the government introduced the GIDC Bill 2014, which was rejected by all chambers across the country.

Yet the government promulgated an ordinance on September 25, 2014 with the objective of over-riding the stay granted by high courts, according to the chambers statement.

Despite such eagerness, the government was unable to collect any GIDC after the ordinance was promulgated as petitions were filed, challenging the ordinance, Vohra said that as the extension of GIDC was about to expire on May 22, 2015, the government probably plans to re-promulgate it.

He stated that the entire business and industrial community will continue to protest against the unjust GIDC until the government announces its complete withdrawal.

Terming GIDC as an “anti-business initiative”, he said that such policies will lead to unemployment and drastically reduce export earnings of Pakistan. The government should refrain from taking such harsh steps which would surely raise the cost of doing business, overburden taxpayers and may also become the main cause for a complete shutdown of many industrial units particularly the value-added and export-oriented industries.

“Instead of taking such punitive steps, the government must focus on facilitating the business and industrial community which will automatically generate more tax revenue, create more jobs and enhance exports,” he advised.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 17^th, 2015.

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