THE government and Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) have agreed to hold technical-level talks on reducing petroleum levy and fuel prices, with both sides to form teams of experts to examine the issue and work out a feasible mechanism for providing relief to consumers. The decision was announced at a press conference in Lahore on Thursday following a meeting between JI leadership and a government delegation at Mansoorah.
The JI is spearheading a peaceful protest campaign against rising prices of petroleum products that have triggered yet another vicious cycle of unbearable inflationary burden for common man. It previously led a similar movement against the exploitative pricing mechanism of electricity that culminated in a somewhat relief for power consumers by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Like unfair components of extremely high capacity payments in case of power tariff, the prices of oil are extraordinarily higher in Pakistan than almost all other countries of the region mainly because government is using global oil crisis to mint money and raise tax collection. There was no need to form committees as it is known even to a layman that so-called petroleum levy is the major culprit and people of Pakistan must not be penalized for failure of authorities to bring untaxed or under-taxed segments of the society into tax net. Federal Minister Rana Sanaullah has held out an assurance that like JI, government too wants to provide relief to the people on account of prices of petroleum products. One hopes the two-week period within which technical teams are expected to come up with their recommendations will not be used as a delaying tactic and the process will lead to substantial reduction in prices of POL products. Government might lose some money but it must not lose sight of the fact that it is also its responsibility to address genuine problems of the people.
