Businesses oppose two weekly holidays

KARACHI: The business community has opposed the move to declare Saturday as an additional weekly holiday, saying it would hamper working schedules, reduce production capacity of the industry with less export earnings, and may hit 32 per cent daily wagers, rather than saving energy.

They said that the widening electricity supply gap was primarily due to stagnant supply of energy as there had been no sizable investment in the energy sector for a long time.

To ensure uninterrupted supply of electricity, it was important to increase power generation and curtail transmission and distribution losses instead of announcing two holidays, which may hit industrial and commercial activities, they said.

They said that on average industry’s monthly bill would go up by 16 per cent and of large scale industrial set-up the impact will be even higher up to 32 per cent.

FPCCI:

FPCCI president Sultan Ahmed Chawla said that the industry would suffer serious production losses due to this action.

‘We should evolve a comprehensive plan to improve both energy availability and energy use based on country’s immense potential which, apart from oil and natural gas, includes hydropower, coal and renewable energy.

‘Owing to present economic situation of the country, we need to work enthusiastically for all seven days of the week instead of anticipated five days,’ he added.

He pointed out here that our norm is to consider Friday as a half day, which, in fact, would result in 2-1/2 holidays in a week.

Furthermore, 32 per cent of our labour force was engaged as daily wagers. What would happen to these poor workers due to two weekly holidays.

SITE:

SITE Association of Industry chairman Salim Parakh said that the government decision to observe two weekly holidays would hit industrial activity as a whole.

He, however, said that the most affected sector would be textile which is the largest sector as well as highest exporter.

Mr Parakh said till now the textile sector had been working on Sundays also to meet export commitments.

In the present free market world, the SITE chief said that timely delivery, along with quality and competitive prices, are paramount issues the industry has to face to maintain its world market share.

But after the introduction of two weekly closures, it would put an extra burden on the industry which would also have to pay over-time to workers coming on duty on Saturdays.

Besides, he said that the industry would continue to pay mark-up on bank loans for another day without getting production from workers and using plant and machinery.

KATI:

Korangi Association of Trade and Industry chairman Razzak Hashim Paracha said that ‘the additional holiday would increase industry’s cost of doing business and the financial burden will be around 12 to 28 per cent and no industry anywhere in the world is operating at 28 per cent margin,’ he said. He said that export-oriented industries have to comply with the international standards and commitments and due to which they have to pay double over-time which comes to about 24 to 28 per cent for four additional days.

NKATI:

Saddiq Mohammad, chairman, North Karachi Association of Trade and Industry, said that the two weekly holidays would have a negative impact on industrial production and exports.

Already there are a large number of undeclared closures on account of strikes and unforeseen developments and on adding these two weekly holidays, the industrial activity would be affected badly, he maintained.

KCCI:

Businessmen Group chairman and former KCCI president Siraj Kassam Teli, KCCI president Abdul Majid Haji Mohammad, vice chairmen and former KCCI presidents Tahir Khaliq, Zubair Motiwala, Haroon Farooki, Anjum Nisar, senior KCCI vice president Rasheeduddin Rashid and VP Javed Ahmed Vohra expressed dissatisfaction to 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 would result in further delays for processing the matters of business community with concerned quarters.

LCCI: The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry urged the government to drop the idea of two weekly holidays as it would disturb working schedules and curtail production instead of doing any service to the economy......Link