The latest rise in petrol prices by Rs 8.14 per litre, just a day after none other than the PM had ruled out any increase for at least a fortnight, has brought things to a tipping point for much of the country’s population. Blaming this trend on international prices, which is only partially true, is not going to cut it with people for too long because it begs the obvious question of why prices at pumps were not first lowered in proportion to the historic collapse of oil down to single digits not too long ago. Now, there’s going to be another round of cost-push inflation when both wages and employment are decreasing instead of increasing and much of the impact of the historic relief package announced just the other day has already been diluted. There’s also the fact that inflation in Pakistan has been pretty high since well before the rush in international commodity prices. And there are several things that are not explained by foreign demand-supply factors. Sugar, for example, has been expensive throughout PTI’s tenure. And while the government has blamed everybody for it, from the previous administration to mafias and special interest groups, nothing has yet been done to arrest the artificial price spiral. Some reports now indicate that prices have been kept high, quite deliberately, because some well-placed and connected individuals wanted to teach some sugar barons a lesson or two, and did that by letting prices rise so consumers would get hurt and producers would be blamed for it. Whatever the real reasons are, it is abundantly clear that the government has been unable to do much about rising prices, especially in kitchen items with practically zero elasticity. Everything including wheat, flour, pulses, sugar, fruits and vegetables are many times more expensive now than they were just a few years ago; and despite all sorts of assurances from everybody all the way up to the PM, prices have continued to rise. When the last finance minister, Hafeez Sheikh, was shown the door, the then information minister, Shibli Faraz, explained that the prime minister had been forced to put his foot down because the finance ministry could not control inflation. What then should the country expect now because the new economic team has been even more ineffective on that particular front? Instead of trying to justify backbreaking inflation and making unreliable and completely irrelevant claims about higher prices elsewhere, the government should at least pretend to sympathise with the people and try to solve their genuine problems. *