The Petroleum Minister has announced daily price fixing. Good intention. Wrong design. Wrong design because daily volatility is daily inflation. The taxi driver. The bus operator. The school van driver. None of them can price their services if petrol changes every morning. That is institutionalised inflation. Wrong design because daily calculation without a buffer means daily pass-through.
Pakistan must have a buffer. No buffer means no consumer protection. The Pakistani consumer absorbs everything. Every day. Wrong design because it uses the same formula with higher frequency which will produce a compromised price 365 times a year instead of 52 times a year. Here is what a real model looks like.
Three steps. Step one: Daily transparency. Every morning at 8:00am, Ogra publishes one number. The previous day’s Platts price, plus standard freight, plus port charges, converted at the State Bank rate. Published by Ogra. Verifiable. Anyone can check it.
Step two: A buffer fund. Thirty daily prices averaged into one Monthly Reference Price (MRP). When international prices fall below what consumers are paying, the difference flows into a ring-fenced Petroleum Price Stabilisation Fund (PPSF). When prices spike, the fund absorbs the shock. Not the consumer.
Step three: One price for a month. The pump price is notified once per month. The taxi driver knows his fuel cost for thirty days. The bus operator can print a ticket. The school van driver can set a monthly fee. The household can write a budget. Look closer: This model is IMF-compatible — because it protects revenue without sacrificing the consumer. That is the model. A model that protects the Pakistani consumer without distorting market pricing. A model built on an independent benchmark. A model with a stabilisation buffer. A model that separates transparency from volatility. A model that converts discretion into arithmetic. A model with one predictable price each month.
