KARACHI:Former President ICCI Shahid Rasheed Butt in a statement on Sunday lauded the decision of the Prime Minister Imran Khan to introduce corporate farming which will improve the food security situation in the country.
The move may attract huge investment which will improve the struggling agriculture sector and provide edibles to masses at a reasonable price, he said. Butt also lauded the move of the government to downsize state-run-enterprises wasting trillions of rupees annually.
Around 4,500 employees of the Pakistan Steel Mills have been terminated which will reduce salary burden by 50 percent to Rs170 million, he said. The business leader said that the remaining staff of the steel mills should also be terminated as the unit is closed since 2015 but employees are enjoying salaries and other perks resulting in a total loss of over Rs300 billion.
He said that retrenchment should also be initiated in railways which had wasted hundreds of billions of rupees while there are 14500 employees in the PIA causing colossal losses therefore almost half of the staff should be shown the door without any delay. Butt said that these institutions were waiting trillions and the government had to get hefty loans on harsh conditions to keep them alive artificially which is not sustainable.
He called upon the opposition to avoid making economizing in failed institutions an issue while the government should declare trade unions illegal if they start an agitation. The government should limit the working hours in commercial centres following the steps of developed nations which will save electricity worth billions, he demanded.