A Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government official has finally conceded that it was indeed the government which was responsible for the country’s gas consumers receiving inflated bills for the months of December 2018, January 2019 and February 2019. Speaking to the press on Tuesday, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Ghulam Sarwar Khan assured media persons that consumers who had been overbilled would be compensated, but remained vague as he added that how the matter would be rectified would be decided by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC). He also remained non-committal about whether the government would refund extra collections to consumers, saying this too would be discussed by the ECC.
As many as 3.2 million gas consumers had received inflated gas bills. Minister Khan’s statements — which it should be noted, do not count as a formal government announcement — come almost a month and a half after the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority and gas companies blamed inflated bills on the government.
It should be noted that winters are usually considered a period of short-lived financial relief for Pakistani citizens as they use less of the more expensive electricity and more of the relatively cheaper Sui gas. It is unfortunate that even this has been bungled by the federal government. Especially considering that electricity prices are set to increase further, making life harder for Pakistanis across the country, especially the middle class and small business owners.
On Tuesday, Minister for Power Omer Ayub Khan announced that power tariffs would be gradually increased by Rs 2.25 to 2.50 per unit. Supposedly, this will bring down the circular debt to Rs 250 billion by December 2019.
Gas prices are also set to increase further, making any reparations made by the government to citizens who received inflated gas bills nothing but a temporary reprieve. On Sunday, it emerged that the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited and Sui Southern Gas Company Limited have filed petitions seeking for tariff increases by 145 percent which would go into effect from July 2019.
Taking all of this into account, it seems that mismanagement and yearly increases in utility prices are a feature from the old Pakistan that have made it into PTI’s Naya Pakistan, despite all the promises made by the party in the run-up to the 2018 general elections and afterwards. *