PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Advisor on Finance Muzzammil Aslam and Special Assistant on Information and Public Relations Shafiullah Jan on Saturday blasted the federal government for the persistent increase in petroleum prices, saying the rulers were introducing a mini-budget every week.
“Since 1958, Pakistan has been in its IMF programme, but such frequent changes in levy had never been seen in any previous programme,” Muzzammil Aslam said while reacting to the hike in petroleum prices.
Muzzammil Aslam said that Shehbaz Sharif government was overreacting to IMF demands. The petrol price of Rs416 per litre, he added, was solely due to the ruthless transfer of levy burden onto the public. He claimed the government was collecting Rs130 to Rs150 billion every month through the petroleum levy, meaning Rs30 to Rs35 billion every week.
The adviser said that the prime minister’s claim of providing a Rs129 billion subsidy was, in his opinion, temporary. “The government is merely compensating the initial Price Differential Claim (PDC) amount that it had paid to oil marketing companies,” he said.
Muzzammil Aslam said that the public had sacrificed enough. If the government cannot manage its income and expenditures, it should not place further burden on the people. He said the people were no longer in a position to afford even two meals a day. Paying for rent, transport, medicines, and education has now become impossible for the people.
Muzzammil Aslam added that in Karachi, even water has become as scarce as petrol.
In another statement, reacting to a journalist holding Federal Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb responsible for the current situation, Muzzammil Aslam said that, in reality, this was the failure of the Shehbaz Sharif government. One cannot absolve the prime minister by blaming a single individual.
Four consecutive years of such low economic growth and high inflation, he said, reflected the failure of commerce, agriculture, industries, finance, and all sectors alike. He termed it a broad-based failure.
Meanwhile, KP CM’s Special Assistant Shafiullah Jan termed the hike in petroleum products another economic burden on inflation-hit people.
He said that the so-called experienced economic team of the federal government had destroyed the country’s economy.
Reacting to the federal government’s increase in petrol and diesel prices, he said the hike in petroleum products exemplified further economic oppression. He said that the Form-47 federal government, lacking a genuine public mandate, was exploiting the poor citizens through relentless inflation.
Shafi Jan said that the failed policies of the federal government’s so-called experienced economic team have pushed the country’s economy to the brink of destruction.
