Daily Times

KARACHI: President, Lasbela Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Yakoob Karim while condemning the unjust increase in petroleum prices, said that caretaker government has no mandate to make a decision that is meant to people’s lives as hell.

In a statement he demanded of the government to revert this unjust and massive raise in POL prices. He said that the OGRA and high uops in power corridors have made this decision to malign the caretaker Prime Minister Nasirul Mulk. He said that contrary to minor change in POL prices internationally, the bureaucrats have increased the petroleum prices by 8.9% without justifying their move.

While opposing the additional bonus of three months to the government employees without any justification he said that it was just a filler by the outgoing government in order to bribe the bureaucrats so that they would favor them in the forthcoming elections.

He pointed out that through POL price government would generate Rs20 in the form of tax on sales of one liter of petrol, similarly Rs30 is collected on the sale of one liter of diesel. He, therefore, proposed that the government to evolve some proper mechanism and concrete economic policies to increase the revenues and stabilize the economy on sound footings instead of taking frequently, the short-term decisions on ad-hoc basis by increasing the prices blindly. They added that the government instead of using POL prices as a tool to generate revenue should curtail its unnecessary expenses and taking austerity measures and enhance the tax net.

He argued that the increase in POL prices would have multiple effect on trade and industry and economic activities which are already confronted with many challenges. The exorbitant increase would further spur cost-push inflation; increase the cost of transportation of raw material and consumer goods; inflate cost of production etc which will be unaffordable in the present circumstance when or exports is towards decline.

Published in Daily Times, June 13^th 2018.