Business leader and former President of the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI), Dr Shahid Rasheed Butt, said on Wednesday that profiteers have become active before the advent of the holy month of Ramadan to mint billions from the masses. He said the sugar, ghee, and cooking oil mafia have initiated profiteering and are getting bold due to the authorities’ inaction.

He said the prices of vegetables and fruits are also increasing in the market, adding to the miseries of the masses, and this must be stopped.

Shahid Rashid Butt said in a statement issued here that, like every year, this year too, the profiteers want to set new records of looting during Ramadan. In this regard, the sugar, ghee, and cooking oil mafia is leading the way, while those dealing with vegetables, fruits, pulses, etc., are also doing their best. He said strong action was needed to defeat all these anti-people elements and save the masses from them.

The business leader said that the area under cultivation of pulses is continuously decreasing, which is increasing its price and import. Unfortunately, at least three hundred billion rupees will be spent on the import of pulses this year.

Shahid Rashid Butt said that the owners of many ghee and steel factories established in the erstwhile tribal areas are involved in tax evasion and smuggling. They import duty-free raw materials in heavy quantities, which are many times more than their requirement, and sell them in Karachi illegally.

This practice illegally benefits them by billions of rupees while the government suffers a considerable revenue loss. These smugglers, working as industrialists, get full support from the concerned officials. Still, their greed makes it impossible for the tax-paying factories to run.