LAHORE (Umar Hayat CH): A discussion session titled “Petroleum Levy and National Economy: In the View of Experts” was organized by Jamaat-e-Islami Lahore West at Litton Road. The session was addressed by Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan Adviser on Political Affairs Dr. Fareed Ahmad Paracha, Ameer Jamaat-e-Islami Lahore Ziauddin Ansari Advocate, Secretary General Jamaat-e-Islami Lahore Azhar Bilal, former President Lahore High Court Bar Association Asad Manzoor Butt, Professor Mashkoor Siddiqui, Khalid Khalilullah and other speakers.
Addressing the session, Ameer Jamaat-e-Islami Lahore Ziauddin Ansari Advocate said that the federal government had no answer to Jamaat-e-Islami’s demands. He said the government wanted to shift the entire burden of the country’s economic difficulties onto the IMF and absolve itself of responsibility.
He said the government claimed that the petroleum levy could not be abolished, while approximately Rs106 per litre was being collected as petroleum levy.
Ziauddin Ansari Advocate said the government should reduce the interest rate from 11.5 percent to 9 percent. He said the federal government was borrowing heavily from local banks and that interest payments on loans had become a major burden on the national economy. According to him, a 2.5 percentage-point reduction in the interest rate could save approximately Rs1,000 billion.
He said government ministers and advisers appeared helpless before the Jamaat-e-Islami committee. He added that the government lacked the political will to provide relief to the people and that no serious progress was being made towards abolishing the petroleum levy.
The Ameer Jamaat-e-Islami Lahore announced that the party’s Super Long March would depart from Lahore for Islamabad on the morning of September 23. He said workers and members of civil society from every union council and locality of Lahore would travel to Islamabad in caravans. He added that caravans from Karachi, Sukkur, Multan and other parts of the country would also proceed towards Islamabad.
He reiterated that Jamaat-e-Islami would not back down until the petroleum levy imposed on petrol was abolished.
Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan Adviser on Political Affairs Dr. Fareed Ahmad Paracha said that Jamaat-e-Islami had been struggling against the interest-based financial system for the past five decades. He said the party had also held sit-ins against the interest-based system under the leadership of Qazi Hussain Ahmad and was once again on the streets under the leadership of Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman.
Khalid Khalilullah said sales tax was imposed on essential commodities, whereas a levy had been imposed on petroleum. He said a significant portion of the federal government’s revenue was consumed by debt servicing and interest payments under the interest-based financial system.
The discussion session was attended by Jamaat-e-Islami Lahore West Secretary Engineer Talha Idrees, Naib Ameer Prof. Dr. Mian Muhammad Akram, Naib Ameer Chaudhry Abdul Qayyum Gujjar, Deputy Secretary Jamaat-e-Islami Lahore Abdul Aziz Abid, Naib Ameer Zone 167 Akram Shaheen, and other party leaders and workers.
