Govt to earn $4bn a year from high POL prices

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Qaiser Khan Afridi
PESHAWAR: The government will earn an additional $3.5 billion to $4bn a year by keeping prices of petroleum products high. The benefit is, however, neither being passed on to consumers nor is the amount being spent on providing relief to the common man.

“The federal government will earn an extra $3.5 to $4 billion in 12 months as prices of petroleum products are not being reduced despite a sharp fall in the international market. Still the government is asking for funds from the World Bank and the IMF and this is illogical,” Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) Director and Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (SCCI) former president, Ghulam Sarwar Mohmand, told The News on Saturday.

He said the prices of petroleum products in the international market showed a sharp fall from $147 a barrel to $47 a barrel, but petrol was still being sold at Rs58.25 per litre, “which is injustice with the people of this country.” Petrol price should be Rs20 to Rs25 keeping in view the world market, he suggested.

“The government should have slashed the prices in line with the international market, but the rulers are fleecing people by pocketing Rs30 per litre,” he lamented. Only in the month of April last, he maintained, the government earned Rs22 billion, meaning Rs264 billion (around $3.5 billion) in a year.

He said there was a perception that the people were deceiving the government in payment of taxes, but it is now clear that the government itself was fleecing the public. “The government should tell people where it has unitised the three and a half billion dollars, which was an extra earning under the head of petrol,” he demanded.

In order to fill the national treasury, he said the government on one hand was begging before the IMF and World Bank and appealing for aid at the donor conference, while on the other nothing is known about the billions of dollars being earned.

“Development budget was curtailed and at the same time millions are being spent on luxuries and useless foreign visits,” Ghulam Sarwar Mohmand pointed out. He said the government used to bow to the conditions of World Bank and IMF, which were directly affecting the business community and common man and making them bear the brunt of extra taxes.

The former SCCI president said the PPP-led government should adopt poor-friendly polices and announce reduction in the prices of petroleum products besides utilising the extra amount on the welfare of the people.

“The government should distribute Rs262 billion among all the provinces as the people of all the provinces had consumed petrol,” he suggested.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=175426