LAHORE - Provincial Minister for Industries, Commerce and Investment Sheikh Alauddin has denounced the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) raids on business premises and said that he would take up this issue with the higher authorities.
He was speaking at the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signing ceremony between the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Skills for All (SFA) here at the LCCI on Monday. LCCI President Abdul Basit, Senior Vice President Amjad Ali Jawa, Vice President Muhammad Nasir Hameed Khan, SFA Chief Executive Sikander Hameed Lodhi, Mahreen Syed, Tanvir Ahmed, Moazzam Rasheed, Ali Hassam Asghar, Tehmina Saeed Chaudhry, Syed Mukhtar Ali and Ashraf Bhatti also spoke on the occasion.
The minister said that business community is a backbone of the economy and it should be given due honour and respect. He said businessmen could contact him if FBR officials are misusing their discretionary powers or conducting undue raids at the business premises. He said that the government is committed to impart all possible facilities to business community as it is playing a major role in bringing the economic stability. He said that no country could achieve economic targets without due role of the business community therefore the government is making all-out efforts to resolve their issues.
He said that the Punjab government has set the target to generate 2m skilled labour force by the year 2018 that would bring a revolution as industry would have highly skilled human resources. He said that Pakistan has a great scope for human resources development as 65 percent of its population consists of youth aged 15 to 35.
The LCCI president lauded the gesture of the minister and said that such support would lift the moral of the business community. He said that raids at business premises and markets and harassment measures by the staff of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) are not only adding to the miseries of the business community but also promoting trust deficit between the government and the business community.