FPCCI, KCCI and SITE oppose 2 weekly holidays

KARACHI - FPCCI President Sultan Ahmed Chawla has strongly opposed the anticipated plan of the government to announce Saturday as a weekly holiday; saying that it will severely hamper the working schedules, reduce production capacity of the industry and export earnings.
He said that the widening demand of supply gap is primarily due to stagnant supply of energy as there has been no sizable investment in the energy sector since long. To generate and ensure uninterrupted supply of electricity, it is important to increase power generation and to curtail transmission and distribution losses instead of announcing two days holiday, which would severely affect industrial and commercial activities of the country.
Chawla said that industries would suffer serious production losses due to this non-serious attitude and action of the govt. We need to evolve a comprehensive plan to improve both energy availability and energy use, based on countrys immense potential which, apart from oil and natural gas, includes hydropower, coal and renewable energy.
He said that the problem is not the shortage of electricity but effective management. It could be managed through proper allocation of energy sector wise in all cities of the country. Owing to the present economic situation of the country, we need to work enthusiastically for all 7 days of the week instead of anticipated 5 days, he added. President FPCCI further maintained that the present economic condition demands our attention towards increasing our interaction with our major trading partners around the globe and by announcing Saturday a weekly holiday, which will deprive our exporters to maintain liaison with them.
Meanwhile, the business community (KCCI) expressed dissatisfaction over the five-day week proposal by the government. They lamented that the business community was already discontented with the mindset and performance of public sector institutions and five-day week proposal will result in further delays for processing the matters of business community with concerned quarters.
They were of the firm opinion that five-day week proposal will highly affect the productivity and performance of official departments. They voiced that business community was not consulted regarding the proposal and important stakeholders should be consulted before taking matters to cabinet.
They were of the view that to curtail the government expenditure, austerity measures should be taken to minimize and control the management and administrative costs, however, two off days would not be a good practice in vogue.
Most of the former KCCI presidents, VPs and other office-bearers demanded the Cabinet to evolve strategy to control the expenditure and defer the 5-day week proposal for public sector institutions.
Meanwhile, Salim Parekh, Chairman, SITE Association of Industry, has strongly criticised the decision of the Cabinet for two holidays in a week. He said that it would badly affect the working of industries especially export oriented industries which work round the clock to meet the export targets throughout the year.