Daily Times

The opposition parties on Thursday held the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government responsible for massive increase in prices of gas, electricity and petroleum products and the rising value of dollar against Pakistani rupee, terming it a total failure of the ‘inefficient’ government.

“Since formation of the PTI government, the masses are confronting increasing prices of utilities in one or another pretext. They [government] have been totally unable to control the price hike. Mismanagement on top and putting the blame on opposition parties has become a routine [of PTI government],” the opposition legislators claimed in their speeches in the National Assembly.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President and Leader of Opposition Shehbaz Sharif lashed out at the government over rupee devaluation. He used the word ‘selected’ for Prime Minister Imran Khan as the latter arrived in the assembly. Speaker Asad Qaiser ordered to expunge the word ‘selected’ from the record. He even asked media persons not to mention the expunged words in any report.

Shehbaz said dollar rate rose by Rs 7 in the last 24 hours and debt burden on national exchequer has further increased by Rs 700 billion. He challenged Omar Ayub Khan’s statement that the PML-N had abandoned renewable energy projects to accommodate expensive LNG plants.

PML-N leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said that ministry of water and power has completely failed to deliver. He said the biggest reason behind devastated economy is increase in the prices of gas. When the PML-N left the government, there was enough electricity and gas supply in the country, he added.

“This is unfair that the government purchases gas at Rs 750 and sells it on general people at a price of Rs 1,500,” he regretted. “The contribution of gas in energy mix is about 50 percent and increasing its price has inflationary impact,” he said, and asked the government to not put more burden on the general public. Increase in prices of energy cannot resolve the issue, he maintained, adding that it is an ‘management issue’.

Taking part in the debate, PML-N’s Barjees Tahir demanded from speaker to issue production orders of MNAs Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar. He termed economic policies of the government a failure.

PPP’s Naveed Qamar also demanded the production orders of the two arrested MNAs from Waziristan, Wazir and Dawar. He said that the presence of the two arrest lawmakers will provide legitimacy to the budget.

However, Minister of State for Revenue Barrister Hammad Azhar told the House that the country cannot run on Benami accounts. He said the power tariff has not been raised for consumers using up to 300 units. The minister said the gas tariff hike will not be applicable to the 45 percent consumers.

Azhar went on to say that economic hit man are still present who took the country’s current account deficit from $2.5 billion to $20 billion, adding that during the tenure of previous government, country’s foreign exchange reserves depleted to $9 billion despite taking $18 billion loans in the last year. He asked the former rulers to answer where the country’s $10 billion foreign exchange reserves have gone during the last year of the PML-N government.

On the other hand, the National Assembly approved six demands for grants relating to power and petroleum divisions, rejecting all the cut motions moved by the opposition through majority vote.

Winding up discussion on the grants, Minister for Power Division Omar Ayub Khan said 75 percent of electricity and 45 percent of gas consumers will not be affected by increase in prices of these commodities. He said the government has provided subsidy to facilitate electricity and gas consumers. He said 80 percent of the total feeders are now load shedding-free across Pakistan. He said supply of additional electricity for three hours to all the feeders in Balochistan has begun.

Meanwhile, the National Assembly rejected all cut motions proposed by the opposition members and approved Rs 1,153 billion defence budget by a simple majority of 169-143. The opposition presented cut motions of Rs 227.15 billion for power division and Rs 25.62 billion in petroleum division. But both the motions were rejected by the majority. The defence budget was approved without any objection from the opposition.