Lower Dir: Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman, the Amir of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, has harshly slammed the government for how it handles power prices and tax collection. Speaking to a crowd in Timergrah, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he said that the government was wrongly taxing paid people while not taxing Independent Power Producers (IPPs).
“Pakistanis are being taxed from their salaries, and the collected funds are being handed over to those who are not even producing electricity,” he said. He said that while regular people are under a lot of pressure to pay, IPPs are getting over Rs. 2,000 billion even though they aren’t making energy. He made it clear that those kinds of amounts could have been used to give everyone, from preschoolers to college students, a free education.
Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman also said that the government was wrong for not wanting to deal with the problem of IPPs, saying that they were protected by international agreements that said they couldn’t do anything. “When we raised the issue, the government said they cannot negotiate with IPPs due to these agreements,” he said. He promised that Jamaat-e-Islami would not change its mind and would keep fighting for lower energy prices until the government did something to fix the problem.
He also said that the present system is unfair to the average person because they have to pay too much in taxes while strong groups continue to get away with things without being held accountable.
