Staff Reporter
Karachi
Chairman United Business Group (UBG) Sindh Khalid Tawab who is also past Senior Vice President Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FPCCI) and past Provincial Minister for Industries while talking to the press said we are fully supportive of workers getting their just dues.
However, it is a matter of extreme distress for the Business Community that we are now faced with an increase of 33% labor wages and other incentives by Karachi Dock Labor Board at Karachi Port Trust which has become affective from 01st May, 2020.
Khalid Tawab said that to combat and overcome the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic we need to control such types of increases.
In fact, the entire government machinery is working hard to reduce / cut down costs and we feel that this increase by KDLB will be the only example of increase in the country.
The business community is of an uniform view that this increase would not be justified even in normal circumstances due to the fact that: Any annual wage increase in a trade agreement must always be based on the prevailing Inflation rate which is presently expected to go down to around 6-7% and in fact overall economy is heading into a recession. KDLB already has a reserve fund of over PKR 3 billion which has not yet been invested in the welfare of the labor or disbursed towards their immediate needs – the basic argument for increase as demanded by KDLB.
This reserve should be utilized by KDLB to support their fiscal requirements in terms of labor wages and subsidies “if required”. If a comparison is made with port labor wages of other ports in the region, Pakistan stands as one of the highest and costly ports (the labor wages keep on increasing indiscriminately every 2 years -usually under threat of potential port shut down).
