KARACHI: The decades old tradition of banks taking a Zakat holiday on the eve of Ramadan to deduct Zakat from Savings accounts should now be discontinued because financial institutions all over Pakistan have installed the latest, high speed technology. Banks as well as corporations are now able to obtain the updated figures in minutes and there is no justification for Banks to take the whole day for what is now a routine data entry. Zaki Ahmed Khan, Vice President Employers’ Federation of Pakistan stated this in a statement.

Zaki added that in olden days, Banks were doing their accounting manually and thus the holiday had some merit since calculators and paperwork required a long time to enter data. Today, when Banks provide a host of services for customers on a click of a button and make complex calculations within seconds, the State Bank of Pakistan must take cognizance and issue new instructions to end such Bank holidays.

The EFP VP accepted the fact that a Zakat Bank holiday has been announced but it is high time SBP discontinues this practice. Pakistan has too many holidays and these have negatively impacted upon domestic production since power and gas loadshedding have already affected production and productivity.—PR