ISLAMABAD: Police across major cities in Pakistan on Wednesday began patrolling shopping malls and markets to implement a government order to shut businesses earlier in the evening in a bid to avert a looming energy crisis.
Pakistan’s cabinet on Tuesday decided shopping malls and markets must close by 8:30 pm instead of around midnight as the country’s economic worries were compounded by a steep rise in the cost of power generation.
A South Asian nuclear-capable nation, Pakistan is faced with an imminent default on its global obligations and is trying to reduce its energy bills as part of efforts to revive a stalled bailout package with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“We’ll have to redesign the pattern of our business timing. We can’t use electricity like that,” Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said at a press conference on Tuesday. Markets worldwide and Europe close early in the evening, he said.
Shopping malls, markets, restaurant and wedding halls in Pakistan usually open in the evening and the businesses then remain open until the early hours of the following morning.
Trade unions and business councils justify these timings by arguing that opening markets isn’t possible during some parts of the day,especially during the hot summer when temperature in most cities jumps to around 45 degrees Celsius.
“Police will go and enforce the decision at any cost,” Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah on Wednesday warned traders, who rejected the move and said they would defy the orders.
“This will ruin small businesses especially retail sector.
We will resist and not close early,” said Ajmal Baloch, a trade union leader in the capital Islamabad. Several attempts by Pakistan’s governments to force the early closure of businesses have failed in the past. — dpa
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