KARACHI - Institute of Business Administration (IBA) Karachi and Orange Tree Foundation (OTF) have signed an agreement to support deserving IBA students whose families have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The scholarship will support 25 such students in their final year of undergraduate programmes, in addition to offering 5 general scholarships for students from underprivileged backgrounds, said IBA statement on Saturday.

The signing ceremony was held online which was also attended by chief executive officer (CEO) of OTF, Omer Mateen Allahwala, IBA’s director alumni and corporate relations, Ms Malahat Awan, and OTF’s head of marketing and communications, Ms Bemisal Iqbal. Omer Mateen Allahwala outlined OTF’s vision of actively working to establish educational equity in the country while Ms Malahat Awan highlighted the future plans of the two partners in offering trainings to scholarship recipients and helping them become contributing members of the society. The OTF is an existing donor of IBA and during the current year it has helped as many as 6 deserving students.

EFP seeks govt support for stationery industry

President, employers federation of Pakistan (EFP), Ismail Suttar, showing his concern over tough situation being faced by stationery industry due to long closure of educational institutions because of COVID-19 pandemic. EFP’s director, Ahsan Ullah Khan, a senior industrialist manufacturing ball-pens, gel pens, markers, fiber-tip pens, pointers and pencils, said the situation was very tough for the industry. The stationery business was almost standstill and not enough revenue could be generated to pay wages to the workers in manufacturing units, said EFP release on Saturday.

Ahsan Ullah Khan urged the government to release all outstanding sales and income tax refunds to this sector to improve their liquidity. 

He also called for grant of waver of all payments to social security and EOBI obligations along with one-year tax relief, capping mark-up at 5 percent and subsidising electricity and gas by 50 percent for the stationery industry.