PRIME Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday underscored the government’s commitment to ensuring the availability of essential food items at affordable prices, making it a top priority. Speaking in a meeting of the federal cabinet, he directed relevant authorities to devise a comprehensive strategy to guarantee the provision of food at reasonable rates during the holy month of Ramadan. The Prime Minister also expressed confidence that the Government’s plan to reduce the power tariff will get a nod from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), bringing much-awaited relief to consumers.
Shehbaz Sharif is considered as an administrator par excellence, but regrettably, the issues of effective price control and provision of relief to the electricity consumers remain unresolved for long. As for artificial price, this problem owes its existence to a lack of required coordination between the federal and the provincial governments and the inability of the governments to activate price control mechanisms. Right from tehsils to federal level, mechanisms exist and authority vested in relevant officials and bodies to review prices regularly and take remedial action in case of profiteering and hoarding but these officials only enjoy their perks as do the regional transport authorities that are squarely to be blamed for non-provision of relief whenever due.
Similarly, there are a number of ministries, departments and high-powered bodies to monitor supply chains and regulate prices but they too are not paying due attention to the issue as importers and manufacturers never pass on the relief to the consumers when prices of commodities or input costs come down. We have seen this many times in the case of sugar, edible oil, wheat flour, cement as well as countless other items. In fact, prices of sugar, almost always go up due to decisions of the Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet (ECC), which is influenced by vested interests.
It is also a sorry state of affairs that prices of essential commodities and those consumed more during Ramadan go up in the holy month, a phenomenon that speaks volumes about free-for-all business practices in the country. The Prime Minister has stressed the importance of cooperation between the federal and provincial governments to deliver affordable food items to the public but practical steps are needed to realize this objective. No doubt, some of the policies of the Government like exchange rate stability have contributed their share in addressing the problems of price-hike but there is greater scope for relief if the authorities concerned discharge their responsibilities in this regard in a vigilant and honest manner.
As for possible reduction in the electricity tariff, the Prime Minister has said he conveyed to the IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on the sidelines of the World Government Summit (WGS) 2025 in Dubai that industries can thrive and economic growth can be achieved only if production costs are reduced. According to him, the IMF chief gave a positive response to his proposal with respect to lowering the prices of electricity. The concern that the IMF would not accept a power tariff reduction has now been dispelled, Shehbaz said, adding that the international lender has invited Pakistan to present its plan for lowering electricity prices. In this backdrop, it is now for the Power Division and the Finance Ministry to prepare urgently a cogent case to convince the IMF for a meaningful reduction in the power tariff, which should not be a difficult proposition when the Government will be saving handsomely due to revision of agreements with a number of Independent Power Producers (IPPs) besides increasing share of the alternative energy in the national energy mix.
