lahore - Noted industrialist, Ch Bashir Ahmed has called for providing level playing field and business-friendly environment to local businessmen
According to him, the local businessmen are being exploited and harassed by civil and police bureaucracy on the behest of politicians just for petty gains.
Ch Ahmed claimed that the federal government was moving from pillar to post for wooing foreign investment and the Punjab govt was holding meetings with foreign investors daily but the local businessmen were shifting their industry to the neighbouring countries just because of prevailing unfriendly and non-conducive business environment.
He was of the view that many of his friends had already shifted their industry to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and other countries because of too many departmental hurdles. He alleged that all the industry-related departments instead of becoming helping hand were creating hurdles for the businessmen and making their lives miserable. It seems as if these departments are working on agenda of closing the industry instead of helping them out, he said and added that he had suffered an estimated loss of Rs500 million during just one year due to such tactics of the departments which used to extend them threat of closing their factories just for fulfilling the agenda better known to them and they closed his factories for at least one year on flimsy grounds.  He suggested the PML-N government for establishing one window operation to deal with the industry related complaints of businessmen instead of moving to all departments.
He claimed that his business is providing $30 million to the government in the shape of foreign exchange in addition to different taxes but despite that he was being harassed by the district administration on daily basis. Due to this ongoing harassment, his company has to go litigation which is having negative and demoralizing impact upon the employees.
He was of the view that these departments should consult their rules and procedures before serving them any closing notices. He claimed that they had moved a number of petitions in different courts against different departments just because they were served notices which had no legal grounds but the bureaucrats were adamant that they would not withdraw these (notices) at any cost. He claimed that they had got relief from the courts in many of such cases but no action was initiated against the officers responsible for sending them such notices and still they were sending them threats of serving such more notices. He claimed that they had already suffered huge financial losses due to such tactics and the political brass should take serious notice of such things.