Protect your home’s luster with Dulux

Weathershield Powerflexx

LAHORE (PR): After working tirelessly to provide a beautiful home for your loved ones, the last thing you would want is for elements of nature to taint the fruit of your achievement. But now, all proud homeowners have nothing to worry about. With the new Dulux Weathershield Powerflexx, keeping the sheen and luster on the walls of your beloved home is made easy.

This coming season (May onwards), your beloved dwelling is likely to be subjected to extreme weather changes: searing temperatures of up to 45 degree Celsius one day, torrential rain on another. According to weather monitoring systems, the average rainfall in Pakistan is almost 1,133,100 litre per year. This means the average Pakistan home withstands more than two million litres of pouring rain over the years. When coupled with thousands of hours of scorching sun, and dirt and dust, this will damage your home, making it look old, weathered and dirty. Extreme weather changes and natural ground movement cause hairline cracks on walls. Many of these cracks are in parts of the wall that you do not normally see, and some are not visible to the eye. However, there is no telling how deep or shallow these cracks are. Rain and moisture can easily seep into these cracks and cause damage.

ACCA, SECP ink MoU to promote investment awareness

LAHORE (PR): ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) has recently signed an MoU with Securities and Exchange Commission Pakistan (SECP) as both ACCA and SECP share a common vision of advancing public interest and are committed towards the promotion of investor education and awareness.

The attendees at the signing ceremony included Ayla Majid and Phoebe Hao You, ACCA Council Members, Helen Brand, Chief Executive ACCA and Sajjeed Aslam, Head of ACCA Pakistan. The senior management from SECP included Akif Saeed, Commissioner SECP and Khalida Habib, Director, Investor Education SECP.

The MOU is expected to be a starting point of the relationship between the two entities and will be moving on to broader matters concerning general financial literacy in Pakistan. Under this MoU, the organisations will jointly organise ‘Investor Awareness Seminar’ series throughout Pakistan as well as hosting local and global conferences which shall contribute to the investor education campaign.

Sindh Bank annual profit increases to Rs2.4b

KARACHI (PR): The Board of Directors of Sindh Bank, in their meeting held on March 2, 2017, reviewed and approved the Audited Financial statements of the Bank for the year ended December 31, 2016.

During 2016, as per the trend in past years, the Bank registered impressive growth in deposits, advances, customer accounts and profitability. Deposits increased by 41.6 percent and stood at Rs119 billion as compared to Rs84.1 billion as on December 31, 2015. Gross Advances rose by 19.9 percent to Rs56 billion as against Rs46.7 billion as on December 31, 2015 and number of customer accounts stood at 418,454 registering an increase of 16.9 percent over 2015. The Bank’s pre-tax profit for the year 2016 amounted to Rs2,427.9 million, increasing by 18.3 percent over Rs2,051.5 million earned last year while Profit after Tax amounted to Rs1,390.8 million.

‘Circular debt piling up again in Power sector’

ISLAMABAD (PR): On February 15, 2017, the total overdue amounts to the power sector, including GENCOs, stood at Rs414 billion. Approximately Rs160 billion out of this relates to overdue payments from CPPA-G owed to GENCOs and NTDC while the balance is for IPPs. Payments owed to Wapda for hydel generation are in addition to this. This is despite the oil prices having dropped by more than 50 percent over the last three years; and this number is steadily rising.

These are amounts verified and audited by the relevant departments for electricity already supplied to the system and are past the payment due dates. Repeated attempts have been made by IPPAC and its Members to meet the senior officials of the government to resolve the long outstanding, audited and verified, overdue amounts, as well as to address pending policy issues on taxes and outstanding dispute resolutions, all to no avail.

In fact, in an arbitration process regarding illegally held back amount, the GOP Attorneys have taken the position that the IPPs should be exercising their legal right of calling GOP Guarantee when they are not paid, rather than going into dispute processes. Left with no choice, the IPPAC Members have today submitted GOP Guarantee calls, under their contracts, for a portion of the overdue amounts.