Staff Reporter
“After telling them all along that these tariff hikes are unjustified, now we hear that that the government is thinking to renegotiate the IMF agreement.
We have been saying the exact thing but were always told by U-turn Sarkar that they are on the right track.
As always, the parliament has not been taken on board on any policy, either now or earlier.
What exactly is their plan?” asked PPP Parliamentary Leader in the Senate, Senator Sherry Rehman.
She said, “If the government has already agreed with the IMF to increase the petroleum levy from Rs510 billion in 2021 to Rs607 billion in 2022 and increase the gas tariff by an additional Rs100 billion, then how do they plan on controlling inflation in the country? Are they going to compensate people for all the jobs lost and the families destroyed? Since the last two years, the per unit price of electricity has gone up by 200% and now finally the government has woken up to realise that the increase in the electricity tariff was indeed unreasonable”.
“Since day one, we warned the PTI government that IMF’s policies would burden the poor but no one paid any heed.
Now, after leaving Pakistan’s economy on the ventilator, over burdening the masses with back to back tariff and taxes, PTI government realises that IMF’s tariffs are “unjustifiable”. We have never seen anything like this before in the past,” added Rehman.
